Fuzzy expert system for forecasting return amount in reverse logistics

Depending on decrease in natural resources and increase in perception of people on environment, governments have begun to attach much importance to legal regulations for protecting environment. In consequence of legal enforcements and customer perception, all actors in the business area are forced to operate recovery activities for getting value from used or scrapped products. In reverse logistics (RL) which includes the control of backward move of goods, for the actors it becomes hard to make scheduling regarding to amount and time of returned products. Because in the uncertain nature of RL, it is not easy to know how much products will return at a given time. Therefore, in this study a fuzzy expert system is proposed for forecasting return amount. An application at an electrical and electronic equipment recycling (e-recycling) facility is conducted for clarifying how the method is used in a real decision process.