LOGISTICS SIMULATION OF RECYCLING NETWORKS

The current GATT agreement will further reduce trade barriers around t he world, leading to a market situation where only the fittest, in pro duction terms 'leanest', can survive. Time-to-market is becoming criti cal for the success of enterprises. Enterprises can survive by coopera ting with others forming a 'virtual enterprise'. Virtual enterprises a re capable of reducing time-to-market by applying concurrent engineeri ng methodologies in a globally distributed environment, and by product ion adaptation to specific customer needs. Increased dependency and to pographical distribution of the business partners require detailed pla nning of the production and logistics process. Where the internal prod uction logistics are usually well optimised, the new situation require s external production logistics also to be optimised to suit the requi rements arising from the new production scheme. Beside this business-r elated production changes, the public will have an increased impact on the different production paradigms in the future. Sustainable product ion set-ups are required to satisfy the requirements of people living at the border of production facilities. The LOCOMOTIVE consortium is d eveloping a tool that will help create a logistic infrastructure suita ble for tackling the new challenging logistics demands of the emerging production paradigm, including the assessment of environmental impact s. The tool is intended to be used by middle and upper management, to support the search for appropriate logistic solutions at the strategic decision level. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All right s reserved.