Management of two competitive closed-loop supply chains

Abstract

The two competitive closed-loop supply chains under our study include three members: two manufacturers and one retailer. In this paper, we focus on the management of the wholesale prices, the retail prices and the collecting prices for the two competitive closed-loop supply chains. On the assumption that the return rate of the used-products is an increasing function of the collecting price, we obtain the optimal wholesale prices, the optimal retail prices and the optimal collecting prices based on the following models: Model MMC (two manufacturers for collecting), Model MRC (manufacturer one and retailer for collecting) and Model RRC (retailer for collecting). Furthermore, by comparing the optimal results, we find that the retailer for collecting is the best channel for the two competitive closed-loop supply chains if the two manufacturers would like to transfer all of their cost savings from remanufacturing to the retailer. At the end, we illustrate a numerical example to analyse the impacts of the market share ratio and the substitute ratio of the two products on the optimal results. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.