In the decline phase of product lifecycle, industrials need to re-design their products to introduce new functions and/or customers’ new preferences. These changes may not only affect the product’s bill of material, but also its supply chain network. Consequently, new supply chain costs are generated. This paper addresses the problem of supply chain configuration considering new product re-design using a multi-agent system (MAS). The objective of the system is to ensure good collaboration between two different points of view, supply chain partners and product designers, to make better decisions. To model the proposed system, we select the multi-agent system engineering (MaSe) methodology. The MAS framework contains three types of agents, namely, “product design agent” and “supply chain agents” which are fitted with optimization tools. These tools allow costs’ optimization and selection of supply chain means (suppliers, technologies, etc.). Finally, the system contains a “communication agent” acting like a mediator; it facilitates data exchange between designers. To support distributed decision-making, two models of mixed integer linear programming are adopted and implemented within the framework for supply chain optimization. The overall MAS approach was tested in simulation with a case study. The objective of the simulation is to choose among three product alternatives the cheapest one based on its supplying and production costs, under capacity constraints. The MAS was able to find the best product alternative among three alternatives proposed by product design team and select optimal supply chain means. The optimal supply chain contains two suppliers: one machine and one subcontractor to satisfy customer’s demand.

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In the simultaneous design of product and its supply chain (SDPSC), the main criteria that is usually used to choose a product design is product cost since it is assumed that up to 70% of product cost is determined during the design phase. However, some researches recognise that product design decisions also affect the environmental impact of the product throughout its supply chain. Consequently, merging eco-design tools with the joint DPSC can develop a better understanding of the product and its environmental interactions to achieve green product development. In this paper, we present a literature review dealing with environmental principles’ integration into the SDPSC, then we investigate tools for green product design selection using multi-criteria decision making (MCDM). We compare suitability of three selected MCDM methods, namely Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluations (PROMETHEE), and Multi-Attribute Value Theory (MAVT). Two case studies were selected from literature, and a sensitivity analysis is applied for each selected method. Results suggest that although all methods are convenient and can be used in practice, TOPSIS method was more stable towards weighting changes.

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