Reverse Logistics Network Design for Medical Waste Disposal under the Scenario of Uncertain Proposal Demand

作者：Lan Zhu, T. Ding, Zhuofan Liu · 发表于：Sustainability · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.3390/su16072996 · 被引用次数：8

With the development of the healthcare industry, the demand for medical services and protective equipment is boosted, causing the generation rate of infectious medical waste to increase rapidly. Therefore, it is of utmost importance for decision makers to effectively predict the potential risks and propose corresponding solutions. This paper investigates the reverse logistics network optimization for medical waste under the conditions of an uncertain proposal demand. Firstly, a prediction model of medical waste based on the SEIR epidemiological dynamics is constructed, in which both routine and public health emergency scenarios are simultaneously considered. Secondly, a bi-objective location-routing optimization model for a medical waste reverse logistics network is proposed, by simultaneously optimizing the total economic cost and potential risk throughout the entire logistics process. Subsequently, an NSGA-II algorithm is designed for a model solution in response to the model’s characteristics. The epidemiological dynamics-based prediction model is validated by the real case to be scientifically effective in predicting the amount of generated medical waste with a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 18.08%. The constructed reverse logistics network model and the NSGA II algorithm provide a medical waste process center location, transportation routing, and vehicle selection solutions for both routine and emergency public health cases of Xi’an city with large, medium, and...