Application of genetic algorithms for the design of large-scale reverse logistic networks in Europe´s automotive industry

After providing a brief overview on Europe´s legislative situation with regard to the demanded recovering and recycling of end-of-life vehicles the paper characterizes the specifications of a modeling approach describing the design of a recycling network including a large variety of different cooperating actors set at diverse positions on a reverse supply-chain. It advances with a discussion of requirements a suitable optimization approach needs to fulfil. Then it proceeds by addressing the optimization approach that has been chosen and it concludes by providing results for an ideal network design.