Managing supply disruption for remanufacturer of reverse supply chain

Supply disruption has a low probability and the severe impacts on the supply chain members. There are two effective approaches to mitigate supply disruptions: (1) splitting orders among multiple suppliers; (2) sourcing from regular suppliers firstly and then from specified backup suppliers when supply disruption occurs. For the latter one, when will the remanufacturer source from the backup supplier is the key issue. In this paper, we will focus on the sourcing time for the remanufacturer of reverse supply chain when a supply disruption occurs. First, the stock-flow diagram with supply disruption of the reverse supply chain is presented by Vensim^® 5.10. Second, the simulation results of the remanufacturer´s profit under different supply disruption periods are shown. Then, by analyzing the simulation results, the strategy for sourcing time can be decided according to the remanufacturer´s profit. At the end, by comparing the simulation results with and without the strategy, we can find that the remanufacturer should source from the backup supplier from the period at which his profit is approximate to zero.