Production and distribution planning of recycled polymers

• Grant number: 17/07573-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: October 01, 2017
• End date: September 30, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Production Engineering - Operational Research
• Principal Investigator: Eli Angela Vitor Toso
• Grantee: Arthur Guedes Pinto
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências em Gestão e Tecnologia (CCGT). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). Campus de Sorocaba. Sorocaba , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 16/01860-1 - Cutting, packing, lot-sizing, scheduling, routing and location problems and their integration in industrial and logistics settings, AP.TEM

Abstract

The 'Divisão Polímeros', belonging to the Cata-Vida recycling cooperative network, acts recycling polymers collected by cooperatives, bringing social and economic benefits to its members. One of the challenges of this network is the planning of production and distribution activities, meaning the decision of how much material to send from each cooperative to the 'Divisão Polímeros', and how much to sell directly to the recycling companies, considering the capacity of each process of the plant. In this sense, the objective of this work is to continue the one developed by Soares e Toso (2016), who proposed a mathematical programming model to support the decisions of production planning and distribution of the network. The model considers that recyclable polymers can be sold directly to recycler companies, or can be processed at the network plant. In this plant, it is possible to perform three steps to add value to the product: warehousing and consolidation cargo; washing and shredding; extrusion for pellet production. The proposal is to reformulate the model, better integrating transport decisions and allowing the flow of material between cooperatives; furthermore, including other optimization criteria, associated to environmental and social aspects, which are inherent to the context of the problem. (AU)