Significant environmental problems have been experienced due to the growth in the amount of used tires every year. In addition, both remanufacturing and recycling options for the end of life tires have become crucial issues nowadays because of the difficulty related to the dissociation of these scrap tires in the environment and the economic benefits of material and energy recovery. In this respect, effective collection, storage, recycle and proper disposal of these end-of-life tires without damaging the environment require designing an efficient closed-loop supply chain network. Based on this motivation, this paper presents a holistic modeling approach for a tire closed-loop supply chain via mixed integer linear programming. Alternative recovery options such as remanufacturing, recycling and energy recovery are considered simultaneously in that model. The main objective of this paper is developing a multi-objective, multi-echelon, multi-product and multi-period logistics network design model in a more holistic manner while taking into account the environmental issues. For quantifying the environmental impact along the closed-loop supply chain, a life cycle assessment based and damage oriented method (Eco-indicator 99) is used. The model is applied to an illustrative case study and interactive fuzzy goal programming approach is utilized for solving the proposed fuzzy multiple-objective network optimization model. In order to reach best profit values and environmental indicator that are targeted, effects of some parameters (factors) within the profit and damage function are examined with the help of Taguchi design of experiment technique. Experimental runs are conducted by using the optimization solver of ILOG OPL Studio 6.3 and results are evaluated through Taguchi's (S/N) ratios, analysis of means graphs, interaction graphs and analysis of variance (ANOVA) via MINITAB 14.
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