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This paper proposes optimisation models to evaluate and examine the selling of extended warranty policies in terms of improved profits in producing/marketing remanufactured products. These models are numerically solved using a quadratic programming solution approach and implemented in the decision support system (DSS).

The purpose of this paper is to develop the optimisation models for a DSS and evaluate different warranty policies for buyers.

This study has demonstrated the flexibility and usefulness of a model-driven DSS for the quality and warranty management, which is applied to examine and evaluate different configurations (i.e. component reuse, rebuild and recycle) for remanufactured products and propose the selling of extended warranty policies for buyers.

The developed model-driven DSS can assist manufacturers to select and increase the number of components, e.g. to be reused, rebuilt, and recycled for producing a remanufactured product and propose suitable warranty policies for buyers. However, this study focusses only on the evaluation of warranty policies for specific remanufactured products in a DSS, i.e. types of air compressors for production operations in manufacturing industry.

This study developed optimisation models to be used in a DSS for proposing the selling of extended warranty of a remanufactured product to improve customer satisfaction and maximise the gained profits for manufacturers.

This paper studies how government subsidies (GS) and extended warranties (EW) feed decision-making about low-quality recycled used products (RUP) in closed-loop supply chains (CLSC).

The authors use the Stackelberg game and numerical simulation to analyze how the quality of RUP affects decision-making about remanufacturing and EW.

The results show that (1) low-quality RUP will weaken the environmental and economic value of EW and harm the profits of the CLSC, and the retailer is more vulnerable to low-quality RUP than the manufacturer; (2) the participation of GS can weaken the negative impact of low-quality RUP on the CLSC, while the participation of EW cannot; (3) the participation of GS or EW can increase the recycling rate of used products and revenues of the CLSC; (4) the linkage of the two can further enhance the economic and environmental value of EW and significantly improve the resource utilization efficiency and benefits of the CLSC.

The authors study the impact of GS, EW and the linkage between the two on resource utilization and revenue of the CLSC.

The utilisation of products with recycled content (PwRC) in construction projects has been identified as a targeted way to achieve sustainable management of construction and demolition waste resources. However, sustainable applications of these resources are subject to a wide array of factors that demand a thorough investigation. This study, therefore, explores the motivations, barriers and strategies for optimal PwRC uptake using a multiple-case study approach.

This study adopted an interpretive multiple-case study approach. The case studies were selected from recently completed construction projects including two infrastructure projects, one commercial project and one residential project. A series of semi-structured interviews were carried out to collect the data. For each case study, four participants were interviewed; these participants represented design, client, supply and building teams.

The study revealed the main barriers, motivations and opportunities for adoption of PwRC resources in four construction projects. These factors are believed to influence the utilisation of PwRC to varying extents and/or in diverse ways. The findings also suggest that there is a significant opportunity for stakeholders to adopt more sustainable waste management practices, and the use of institutional drivers can help achieve this goal.

The primary research contribution of the study lies in proposing three key research directions: investigating regulatory constraints impacting the use of PwRC, addressing supply chain challenges and enhancing quality assurance.

The research has a practical contribution to the industry through a suite of actionable strategies to increase the uptake of PwRC. The strategies are mostly focussed on stakeholders' education, the regulation that supports PwRC and project management planning. The two major motivations – referring to two of the three pillars of sustainability (economy and environment) – provide a basis for organisational changes to ensure achieving sustainability in construction activities.

In this paper, the authors explore the consequences of showrooming and price matching strategy to combat showrooming under the consideration that brick-and-mortar (BM) stores and online retailers hold different costs.

The authors use a duopoly model to analyze the impact of showrooming behavior on competition between a BM store and an online retailer with different types of customers and different costs. Then, they consider the price matching strategy that a BM store could employ to combat showrooming and explore the effect of such a strategy.

Showrooming behavior is detrimental to the profit of the BM store, and the online retailer suffers a loss of their profit unless the relative cost of the BM store is high and only part of the customers exhibit showrooming behavior. As the fraction of customers who seek price matching increases, profits of both the BM store and the online retailer initially decrease and then may increase, even if there is no showrooming.

Unlike existing studies that ignore different costs between online and offline retailers, the authors set different costs between the BM store and the online retailer to consider the effects of showrooming and price matching strategy.

There is now much emphasis in both research and practice on the principles of circular economies. In this paper remanufacturing is examined as a key enabler of circular practices, and the concept of “Product-Agnostic Manufacturing” (PAR) is proposed. This work differentiates PAR from many traditional approaches to remanufacturing by virtue of PAR's treatment of product variety. Most existing approaches to remanufacturing feature low variety and standardisation; this study instead suggests that the exploitation of flexibilities in both operations and supply chains leads to new competitive strategies for firms to exploit.

This is a conceptual study that builds on a thorough exploration of contemporary remanufacturing literature in the development of the new PAR concept.

Through a detailed literature review it is shown that there are a range of benefits, challenges, and critical success factors that underpin the remanufacturing concept. Building on this understanding and bridging literature in operations flexibility and supply chain design, a detailed discussion on the nature of PAR is provided, and an agenda for future research developed.

Whilst there has been much literature on remanufacturing, there is a general tendency to treat supply chain and remanufacturing operations quite distinctly in individual articles. Additionally, there has been little consideration of multi-product remanufacturing, and for the limited studies where this is done, the emphasis is typically on problem avoidance. This study aims to provide a detailed insight into the developed PAR concept, showing how the remanufacture of a wide range of product varieties may be achieved through flexible operations and supply chain design.

Warranty-based big data analysis has attracted a great deal of attention because of its key capabilities and role in improving product quality while minimizing costs. Information and details about particular parts (components) repair and replacement during the warranty term, usually stored in the after-sales service database, can be used to solve problems in a variety of sectors. Due to the small number of studies related to the complete analysis of parts failure patterns in the automotive industry in the literature, this paper focuses on discovering and assessing the impact of lesser-studied factors on the failure of auto parts in the warranty period from the after-sales data of an automotive manufacturer.

The interconnected method used in this study for analyzing failure patterns is formed by combining association rules (AR) mining and Bayesian networks (BNs).

This research utilized AR analysis to extract valuable information from warranty data, exploring the relationship between component failure, time and location. Additionally, BNs were employed to investigate other potential factors influencing component failure, which could not be identified using Association Rules alone. This approach provided a more comprehensive evaluation of the data and valuable insights for decision-making in relevant industries.

This study's findings are believed to be practical in achieving a better dissection and providing a comprehensive package that can be utilized to increase component quality and overcome cross-sectional solutions. The integration of these methods allowed for a wider exploration of potential factors influencing component failure, enhancing the validity and depth of the research findings.

Currently, digital technology has been proposed as a new archetype for developing an effective traceability system in the perishable food supply chain (FSC). Implementation of such a system needs significant investment and the burden lies with the members of the supply chain. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact on the profit of the supply chain members due to the implementation of an effective traceability system with such a large investment. The study also tries to explore the impact of the implementation of such a system by coordination among the members through a cost-sharing mechanism.

A two-level supply chain that comprises a supplier and retailer is analyzed using a game-theoretic approach. The mathematical models are developed considering the scenario for an individual, centralized and both members invest using a cost-sharing mechanism. For each of the models, the impact of product selling price, information sensing price and quality improvement level on profit is analyzed through numerical analysis.

The study reveals that consumer involvement can be a strong motivation for the supply chain members to initiate investment in the traceability system. Further, from an investment perspective cost-sharing model is beneficial compared to the individual investment-bearing model. This mechanism can coordinate as well as benefit the FSC members. However, the model is less beneficial to the centralized model from profit and quality improvement levels.

Food wastage can be less from supplier and retailer perspectives. Moreover, consumers can purchase food items only after verifying their shipping conditions. Consequently the food safety scandals can be reduced remarkably.

Digital technology adoption in the perishable FSC is still considered emerging. The present study helps organizations to implement a traceability system in the perishable FSC through consumer involvement and a cost-sharing mechanism.

This study advocates the importance of taking an evolutionary perspective in the strategic configuration of closed-loop supply chains (CLSC) in the transition to a circular economy. Building on the supply chain management and industrial dynamics research domains, an evolutionary analytical framework was developed and applied in the empirical context of the ongoing industrial transition to e-mobility.

This study is designed as an in-depth exploratory case study to capture the multi-layer dynamic complexities and their interplay in CSLC development. The empirical investigation was based on two-year interactions between the authors and various departments in a leading European heavy vehicle manufacturer. The proposed evolutionary analytical framework was used for investigating the dynamics of four CLSC configurations through ten possible trajectories.

The findings demonstrate that the evolution of each CLSC configuration comes with multiple challenges and requirements and point out the necessity for the co-development of technologies, product design and production, and infrastructure through long-term relationships among key supply chain actors. However, this evolutionary journey is associated with multiple dilemmas caused by uncertainties in the market and technology developments. All these factors were properly captured and critically analyzed, along with their interactions, thanks to the constructs included in the proposed evolutionary analytical framework.

The proposed evolutionary framework is applicable for examination of SC transformation in the context of market and technology development, and is particularly relevant for transitioning from linear SC to CLSC. The framework offers a single actor perspective, as it does not directly tackle dynamics and effects of actions taken by SC actors.

The developed framework can support SC managers in identifying, framing, and comparing alternative strategies for CLSC configuration in the transition process.

This study proposes the framework for understanding and guiding the evolutionary process of CLSC development. Its uniqueness lies in the integration of concepts from innovation and evolutionary theories coming from industrial dynamics and SCM literature streams.

Despite a large amount of BIM data at the handover stage, it is still difficult to identify and effectively isolate valuable construction supply chain (CSC) data that need to be reliably handed over for operation. Moreover, the role of reconciling disparate data is usually played by one party. The integration of blockchain and BIM is a plausible framework for building a reliable digital asset lifecycle. This paper proposes a BIM single source of truth (BIMSSoT) data model using blockchain for ensuring a reliable CSC data delivery.

This paper utilises a blended methodology, the foundation of which is ingrained in business and management research with elements of information and communication technology (ICT) research wherever required. Knowledge elicitation case studies utilising novel interventions such as a data flow diagram (DFD), taxonomy and entity-relationship diagram (ERD) were used in this paper to develop the BIMSSoT data model. The model was validated using an expert forum, and its technological feasibility was established by developing a proof of concept.

The practical contribution of this research leads to the progression of BIM towards digital engineering to go beyond object-based 3D modelling by building structured and reliable datasets, transitioning from project-centric records to a digital ecosystem of linked databases by utilizing blockchain's potential for ensuring trusted data.

To the best of the author's knowledge, prior to this paper, no research had investigated a detailed data model development leveraging blockchain and BIM to integrate an immutable and complete record of CSC data as another dimension of BIM for operations.

This study investigates two moderators of the effects of manufacturers' recovery efforts following a product defect on customers' perceptions of product quality: the severity of the product defect and whether the recovery efforts were covered under warranty or not.

A total of 478 USA customers who purchased a new car from a cooperating manufacturer participated in a survey. Customers reported the most important product defect (if any) the customers had experienced with the customers' vehicle during the past year. Three linear regressions (OLS) were used to test the proposed hypotheses.

Defect severity moderates the effects of recovery efforts on quality perceptions. The well-known recovery effect occurs only for product defects of minor severity. Experiencing a severe product defect damages the customers' perceptions of product quality even if the product defect is completely fixed. Double deviations (failed recovery of a product defect) do not damage quality perceptions for defects of minor severity. Finally, warranty coverage of repairs can attenuate the adverse effects of a failed recovery of severe defects on customers' quality perceptions. Additionally, only non-complainers who have experienced a severe product defect correspond to the prevailing conceptualization of an at-risk customer group.

Despite the pervasiveness of product defects, research on the effects of experiencing product defects on customers' product quality perceptions is scarce. Furthermore, the authors' findings reconcile inconsistent results and provide a more nuanced understanding of the well-known recovery and double-deviation effects. Finally, the role of warranty coverage in the recovery process as a buffer for customers' perceptions of product quality is novel.