Abstract: Remanufacturing is able to reduce resource assumption on the one hand; On the other hand, remanufacturing also can make the environment and society better by reducing the carbon emission. Hence, more and more governments require manufacturers to engage in remanufacturing. A classical closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) is a combination of forward distribution in which the manufacturer sells products through the retailer and reverse distribution where manufacturer collects used products via the recycler. Manufacturer as the leader can choose to integrate forwardly or reversely to enhance completive edge and achieves higher supply chain efficiency. For instance, Xiaomi, a leading Chinese smartphone maker, bought Youmi, a South Korean retailer, in 2017 to sell her products and expand her presence in South Korean. Reserve integration, as an alternative strategy, stretches a manufacturer’s operations towards the used-products collection, enabling the manufacturer to save cost. For example, Nike formed an alliance with National Recycling Coalition to collect used shoes, and firms like IBM, Dell, Huawei, and Haier established their own departments or branches to collect used-products. Based on the phenomena, some researchers like Nie (2012) and Ma et al. (2016) have made some analyses of the different cooperation in the CLSC. However, they all ignore the facts that competition is no longer firm against firm, but rather supply chain against supply chain as Ha et al. (2017) said.
Motivated by the observation and literature, several interesting questions arise. (1)whether the manufacturer still has an incentive to integrate forwardly or reversely in compositing CLSCs? (2)Industry profit really benefits more from forward integration? To address the questions, we develop the model consisting of competing manufacturer selling her products through exclusive retailers, and collecting the used products via the exclusive recycler. We explore whether the manufacturer is possible to choose forward or reverse integration in competing CLSCs. We find that manufacturers both have an incentive to integrate forwardly or reversely. And industry profit of forward integration is always higher than that of reverse integration. This result is similar to Ma et al. (2016).
Reports and investigations from Griffin (2001), lots of manufacturers exhibit diseconomy due to bad managements, low technologies or skills. Hence, we study manufacturers who choose forward or reverse integration in competing closed-loop supply chain if manufacturers exhibit diseconomy. We find that manufacturers both still have an incentive to integrate forwardly or reversely. To our surprise, when the production diseconomy is small, the industry profit of forward integration is higher; otherwise, the industry profit of reverse integration is greater. This is different from the traditional wisdom. In addition, a manufacturer preferring to integrate forwardly or inversely depends on production diseconomy and competing manufacturer’s strategy.

Key words: competing CLSCs, forward distribution, reverse distribution, diseconomy

摘要： 基于链与链竞争情形下,探讨了闭环供应链中制造商纵向整合策略选择。以制造商单位生产成本为基准,发现制造商不仅有动机整合正向物流或逆向物流,而且整合正向物流总是有利于增加其闭环供应链利润。若存在规模不经济,虽然制造商同样有动机整合正向物流或逆向物流,但是整合正向物流时闭环供应链利润是否高于其整合逆向物流取决于规模不经济系数。规模不经济系数较小时,制造商整合正向物流时闭环供应链利润高于其整合逆向物流;反之,制造商整合正向物流时闭环供应链利润低于其整合逆向物流。

关键词: 竞争闭环供应链, 正向物流, 逆向物流, 规模不经济