Automating Forward and Reverse Supply Chains in the Context of Industry 4.0

The 4th industrial revolution brings in a transformation of the traditional supply chain towards a digital supply chain. The machines will be able to use algorithms that will enable them to automate the supply chain formation process and to quickly react to disruptions. The current approach proposes a mechanism based on a message passing inference scheme in order to address the automated supply chain formation problem in a closed-loop supply chain by integrating forward and reverse supply chains. Forward supply chain imply a series of activities required to produce new products from virgin materials and distribute them to consumers while reverse supply chains require collecting used products from consumers and reprocessing them to either recover their leftover market values or dispose of them. It has become common for companies involved in a forward supply chain to also carry out collection and reprocessing of used products. Strict environmental regulations and diminishing raw material resources have intensified the importance of reverse supply chains at an increasing rate. The proposed mechanism is evaluated using two type of supply chain configurations from textile and automobile industry, demonstrating that automated integration of reverse supply chains along with forward supply chains, lead to benefits for the participants in the supply chain.