Impact of Circular Economy and Key Operational Parameters on Steel Supply Chain Performance Under a Dedicated Warehousing Policy: A Multi-Objective Case Study

Background: Egypt is one of the top steel producers in the Middle East and Africa, yet it faces acute water scarcity and rising energy costs, making it a critical context for studying trade-offs among carbon emissions, water ecological effects, and operational cost in steel supply chain. Methods: Using a multi-objective optimization model based on real data from a major Egyptian steel manufacturer, this study evaluates trade-offs among cost, tardiness, and environmental impact measured by carbon emissions and water ecological effects. Unlike prior studies, this study demonstrates that dedicated warehousing enables batch-level traceability of returned scrap while reducing material handling travel time and carbon emissions. The AUGMECON method generates Pareto-optimal solutions, and sensitivity analysis is conducted on six parameters: scrap take-back rate, demand variability, raw material price, energy cost, production capacity, and carbon tax. Results: Demand and raw material prices dominate performance: a 5% demand increase raises cost by 8.6%, and a 15% raw material price increase raises cost by 32.7%. The knee-point solution achieves 58.18 billion EGP, 0.99 months tardiness, and 2096 million kg CO2 over nine months. Conclusions: This study quantifies the impact of the circular economy and operational parameters on steel supply chain performance under a dedicated warehousing policy.