Decision for pricing, service, and recycling of closed-loop supply chains considering different remanufacturing roles and technology authorizations

In this paper, in the context of the manufacturer remanufacturing and remanufacturing commissioned by the manufacturers to the retailers under technology authorizations, we develop the decision models of closed-loop supply chains with third party recycling in three different remanufacturing roles and technology authorizations: manufacturer remanufacturing (MR), retailer remanufacturing after paying for the technology authorization fee per unit product (UR), and retailer remanufacturing after paying for fixed technology authorization fees (FR). By analyzing the pricing, service, recycling decisions, and the profit of the supply chain members in different remanufacturing modes, it is shown that the FR remanufacturing mode not only promotes the retailer to improve the product service level, but also enables the third-party to improve the recovery rate. When the consumer’s acceptance degree of remanufactured products reaches a certain level, relative to the MR and UR re-manufacturing modes, the FR remanufacturing model enables manufacturers, retailers, and third-party to simultaneously maximize profits. More managerial insights are provided from the numerical analysis.