Intelligent location-routing for sustainable reverse supply chain of end-of-life vehicles considering awareness cost and carbon penalty

This paper presents a comprehensive investigation into optimizing the reverse supply chain for end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) with a focus on sustainability considerations, including awareness cost and carbon penalty. A novel three-objective mathematical model is developed, leveraging fuzzy logic to address the complex nature of the problem. Two multi-objective algorithms, the Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) based on the Pareto boundary and the NSGA-II algorithm, are deployed to solve the model. A case study in China is conducted to validate the proposed model, with results compared against the outcomes of the algorithms. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis approach is employed to assess the impact of awareness cost and carbon penalty parameters. Furthermore, the Taguchi experimental design method is utilized to identify the optimal combination of parameter values. The findings reveal that the GWO algorithm surpasses NSGA-II in terms of solution quality and diversity, although NSGA-II demonstrates superior performance in uniformity and computational time. The sensitivity analysis highlights the positive correlation between increased awareness cost and various performance metrics, such as the number of collected vehicles, economic profit, and social profit, while also indicating a reduction in environmental impacts. Conversely, escalating carbon penalties leads to a decrease in the acceptance and processing of vehicles within the supply chain, resulting in diminished chain and social profits, despite the decrease in carbon penalties.