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This paper aims to propose a two-period model, including an original manufacturer, a retailer and a third-party remanufacturer, in which the products manufactured by the original manufacturer are patent-protected and the remanufacturing degree of remanufactured products influences the purchasing decisions of consumers.

This paper analyzes the decisions of the original manufacturer, the retailer and the third-party remanufacturer of two periods, using Stackelberg game and obtains the equilibrium solutions of the three parties.

The study finds that consumers’ focus degree to the remanufacturing degree has a negative correlation with the equilibrium unit patent-licensing fee, the retail price of remanufactured products, the remanufacturing degree of remanufactured products and the wholesale price of new products in the first period, but has a positive correlation with the retail price of new products in the second period.

(1) Consumers’ focus degree to the remanufacturing degree has a negative correlation with the equilibrium unit patent-licensing fee, the retail price of remanufactured products, the remanufacturing degree of remanufactured products and the wholesale price of new products in the first period, but has a positive correlation with the retail price of new products in the second period. (2) The remanufacturing action efficiency of the third-party remanufacturer has a positive correlation with the equilibrium unit patent-licensing fee, the retail price of remanufactured products, the remanufacturing degree of remanufactured products and the wholesale and retail prices of new products in the second period.

This paper aims to study the impact of manufacturer’s upgrading strategy of durable products on the retailer’s decision on trade-in program and her decision on the secondary market.

This paper develops a channel that consists of a manufacturer and a retailer, where the manufacturer releases an upgraded product, and the retailer introduces a trade-in program for consumers, simultaneously, decides whether to enter the secondary market. These approaches are modeled through Stackelberg game.

This paper reveals that the optimal conditions for manufacturer to release upgraded products and retailer to resell used products in the secondary market, and it reveals that under what conditions it is profitable for retailer to enter the secondary market under product upgrade levels.

If the manufacturer’s upgrade level is low, it is profitable for the retailer to enter the secondary market. However, if the manufacturer’s upgrade level is high, it is unprofitable for the retailer to enter the secondary market.

In this paper, the active secondary market, upgrading of new products, consumer market segmentation and especially, the upgrade degree of new products as a function of consumer demand are considered simultaneously.

This paper explores how the existence of a second-hand market can affect remanufacturing decisions for durable goods in the presence of patent protection.

The authors construct a dynamic decision model between a durable goods original manufacturer and a durable goods remanufacturer considering the characteristics of the multi-cycle uses of new durable goods and remanufactured durable goods.

The results show that (1) the second-hand market compresses the cost space of a durable goods original manufacturer and a remanufacturer; (2) when the second-hand market exists, the optimal pricing of new durable goods is reduced, the optimal pricing of remanufactured durable goods is increased and the patent cost of each unit of durable goods increases and (3) the presence of the second-hand market will increase the original manufacturer's and remanufacturer's profits.

The research conclusion has certain reference value for the production strategy selection of each enterprise in the process of patented product remanufacturing and the government's fiscal policy formulation at each stage of the remanufacturing industry's development.

Remanufacturing is a process whereby value from old products is recovered by replacing and recovering used components to bring such products to a new or like-new state. Today, both original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and third parties are engaged in remanufacturing activities, investing in many locations throughout Asia. The purpose of this paper is to examine the reasons for initiating remanufacturing activities as well as the location determinants for the remanufacturing sector in Asia.

The authors conduct a multiple case study. Triangulation is applied to gain objective views from interviewing three OEMs, one logistics firm, and three local small enterprises. Real options theory is the theoretical lens used to examine the location choice of the OEMs.

Firms engaged in remanufacturing tend to co-locate facilities with existing manufacturing facilities, and those investing in new sites for remanufacturing view the regulatory environment as the most important factor. OEMs tend to leverage on existing manufacturing facilities or third-party remanufacturers to reduce their cost of commitment when starting remanufacturing at new locations.

The sample size is still small for the generalization of the results. Further empirical study is needed to test the propositions from this paper.

This paper could assist managers and decision makers in the multinational corporations to design appropriate logistics-related solutions for remanufacturing in Asia.

The authors work contributes to the theory on remanufacturing location determinants. It shows that OEMs and third-party remanufacturers can have a collaborative relationship instead of the commonly assumed competitive one, which is currently not found in the literature.

The circular economy grows in popularity in sustainability-oriented environments. Remanufacturing contributes to circularity though it faces challenges regarding reverse supply chains (SCs). Literature focusses on closed-loop supply chains (CLSCs) for reverse flows of products. However, alternative SCs and different market actors provide used components (cores) for remanufacturing through “open-loops”. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of independent actors on core supply and how especially middlemen implement supplier relationship management to address supply shortages in automotive remanufacturing.

The study follows a qualitative research approach to compare remanufacturing SCs in Europe and North America. The analysis aims to identify managerial leverage to reduce supply shortages.

Reduction of information asymmetries and transaction costs is crucial for “open-loop supply chains” to compete with more integrated CLSCs. The study identifies an e-procurement solution that addresses these issues and helps to increase the supply through “open-loops”. Furthermore, regulation may hinder or facilitate supply.

It needs to be further investigated to what extent e-procurement and supplier relationship management can reduce shortages. Middlemen who can collaborate with the research would provide further research opportunities.

If supplier relationship management adapts to the requirements of remanufacturing, it can increase the supply potential through “open-loop” SCs. The e-procurement solution could serve SCs beyond automotive remanufacturing. Policy makers need to revise legislation hindering these SCs.

The study provides novel findings regarding independent actors, their supplier relationship management and their potential to reduce shortages in independent SCs for remanufacturing.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the optimal production and financing strategies for the closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) composed of a capital-constrained original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and a risk-averse authorized remanufacturer (RM).

The authors formulate four models with different scenarios, namely, the OEM has sufficient capital; the OEM has limited capital without financing; the OEM adopts debt financing strategy; and the OEM adopts equity financing strategy. The equilibrium solutions of each scenario are obtained by backward induction method, the influences of risk aversion coefficient on the equilibrium solutions are examined and the OEM's optimal financing strategy is found by comparison analysis.

When the OEM's initial capital is limited and the equity dividend ratio is less than a certain threshold, the equity financing strategy is more advantageous for the OEM. However, if the OEM's initial capital is extremely scarce and the dividend proportion is large, the OEM prefers the debt financing strategy. When considering financing, consumer surplus always decreases as the risk aversion factor increases; the debt financing strategy is more environmentally friendly compared with the equity financing strategy. Only the debt financing strategy can make both members in the CLSC achieve a win-win situation in a certain region when the dividend ratio is sufficiently large.

It will be more fascinating if the model extends to such a case that the production operation situation in the CLSC composed of multiple OEMs in multiple periods. Furthermore, the remanufacturer's risk-averse information is asymmetry may be more realistic in our daily life.

There are three main differences from the existing research. One is that the remanufacturer's risk aversion originates from the uncertain remanufacturing cost instead of the uncertain market demand. Another is that the boundary conditions of the OEM prefer to adopt debt financing is obtained through the envelope theorem with Lagrange multiplier method. Last but not the least, this paper provides a good theoretical reference and practical guidance for the OEM to make the rational financing strategy selection in face of different degree of capital scarcity in the CLSC system. The value of the three aspects provides a theoretical basis for the optimal operation decisions of capital-constrained manufacturer considering the remanufacturer's risk aversion in the CLSC operation system.

This paper aims to propose a two-period model in which an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) decides the remanufacturability level of products in product design and unit patent licensing fee at the first period, and a third-party remanufacturer (3PR) that has been licensed by the OEM enters the remanufacturing market to compete with the OEM at the second period.

This paper analyzes the OEM's optimal decisions of remanufacturability level in the product design and unit patent licensing fee at the first period, as well as the OEM's and the 3PR's optimal decisions of selling prices at the second period, under two scenarios that the remanufacturing is constrained or unconstrained by the collected quantity available at the end of the first period, by making use of game theory.

The study finds that the OEM will choose high remanufacturability in product design only when the unit cost saving of remanufacturing or unit production cost of new products exceed certain thresholds.

The study is the first attempt to simultaneously integrate product design and patent licensing in remanufacturing. It provides useful insights for OEM managers who face competition from 3PRs and may use their product design strategies to deter 3PRs and may protect patent of products by levying patent licensing fees from 3PRs.

The purpose of this article is based on the unit patent license fee model in the closed-loop supply chain.

This paper analyzes the impact of the bundling strategy of the retailer selling new products and remanufactured products on the closed-loop supply chain under the condition that the original manufacturer produces new products and the remanufacturer produces remanufacturing products.

The results show that alternative products can be bundled, and in many cases, the bundling of remanufactured products and new products is better than selling alone.

If the retailer chooses bundling, for the remanufacturer, when certain conditions are met, the benefits of bundling are greater than the separate sales at that time; for the original manufacturer, when the recycling price sensitivity coefficient is high, the bundling is better than separate sales.

The purpose of this study is to explore the interplay between the selection of selling formats of remanufactured products for a third-party remanufacturer (TPR) and the quality decision of an original equipment manufacturer (OEM).

This study considers a remanufacturing supply chain, where the OEM sells new products through a platform retailer, but the products remanufactured by the TPR can be sold via a direct or indirect channel. The authors model a Stackelberg game and explore the optimal quality decision of the OEM and selling format choice of the TPR.

The OEM's optimal decision depends mainly on consumers' discounted utility coefficient and cost-scale factor of remanufactured products. A higher consumers' valuation of the remanufactured product will not result in a higher retail price, but may lead to an increase in new product's sales. Given the cost-scale factor, the TPR prefers to sell directly no matter what the value of consumers' discounted utility coefficient is. An all-win situation is achieved with selling directly when consumers' discounted utility coefficient is sufficiently large.

These results provide some support to the operational strategies of the OEM and TPR.

This study firstly endogenizes the quality decision and combines the selling format selection of the TPR and the quality decision of the OEM to explore the interplay between these two important decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate remanufacturing operational strategies considering uncertain quality of end-of-life (EOL) products and differential consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for new products and provide suggestions on the remanufacturing mode selection for the original equipment manufacturer (OEM).

This study considers three remanufacturing modes, i.e. in-house, outsourcing and authorization modes. By establishing and comparing decision models of three modes from the perspectives of profit, consumer surplus and environment, the optimal remanufacturing mode is discussed.

The results suggest that if the OEM’s remanufacturing capability is high, the in-house mode brings to the highest environmental performance, OEM’s profit and consumer surplus. Otherwise, the outsourcing mode (authorization) is the best benefit to environment (consumers if the unit production cost of new products is not too high). As for the preference of two decision-makers to outsourcing and authorization modes, if the difference of consumers’ WTP for new products is low, the OEM prefers the outsourcing mode; otherwise, the OEM prefers the authorization mode. The preference of the third-party remanufacturer (TPR) to remanufacturing mode is affected by consumers’ WTP for remanufactured products, WTP difference for new products and remanufacturing quality level standard.

These results can provide operational insights into how to select remanufacturing mode when the quality of EOL products is uncertain and consumers’ WTP for new products is different under three remanufacturing modes.

This paper is among the first to investigate the joint effects of EOL products’ uncertain quality and differential consumers’ WTP for new products on the operational strategies and performance under different remanufacturing modes.