Reusable Packaging Operations Management

Research on the operation optimisation and application of the decision support system for the reusable packaging sharing platform

In supply chain operation, packaging operation is at the terminal of production logistics and the starting point of social logistics. Traditional disposable logistics packaging products, as the basic guarantee and support products throughout the supply chain, cause a large amount of waste of packaging resources and environmental pollution, which restricts the standardised operation of logistics and circulation efficiency. Therefore, as an important part of the low-carbon supply chain operation practice framework, the promotion, application and systematic operation and management of reusable packaging has been the focus of national and industry level. However, there are three main challenges in the reusable packaging operation and management in the industry: redundant and repetitive reusable packaging business operation processes and insufficient digitisation; diverse order requirements and uncertain market demand for reusable packaging, which leads to mismatch between supply and demand of reusable packaging, resulting in increased risk of supply chain breakage; and lack of incentive decision-making for revenue distribution in the systematic operation of the reusable packaging platform.

Based on the above practical challenges, this project will build an emerging reusable packaging shared service decision support system based on the results of previous research, and propose a set of digital process reengineering and shared service function reorganisation architecture. Among other things, it will model the demand and recycling volume of the customer's reusable packaging appliances, and propose a collaborative scheduling operation of the integrated shared service platform and an optimisation strategy for the platform's revenue distribution. This will reasonably improve the platform's order fulfilment capacity, profitability, reusable packaging equipment use efficiency and platform logistics system operation efficiency, giving full play to the advantages of reusable packaging in the circular economy and low-carbon supply chain.

Carbon peaking and carbon neutrality as important national strategies have influenced the development of various industries. While maintaining the development goals of industrialisation and modernisation, low carbon economic development has become the next important issue for the country and various industries. At the same time, Made in China has been fully integrated into the world's industrial chain and supply chain, and the development of a low-carbon economy has presented new challenges and opportunities for supply chain management. The National 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Circular Economy and the 14th Five-Year Plan and Outline of Visionary Targets for 2035 both clearly point out that building sustainable and green supply chains and promoting the economical and intensive use of resources are of great significance in safeguarding national resource security and promoting the construction of ecological civilisation. Low-carbon supply chain management refers to ensuring that under the normal operation of the enterprise's information flow, knowledge flow and logistics, the carbon footprint of the supply chain in the processes of procurement, processing, production, storage and packaging is transformed and modified in full consideration of the enterprise's environment, resources and economic benefits. The packaging operation is at the end of the production logistics and the starting point of social logistics, and traditional disposable logistics packaging products, as the basic guarantee and support products throughout the supply chain, have caused a large amount of packaging resources waste and environmental pollution, and restricted the standardisation of logistics operation and circulation efficiency (Reusable Packaging Association, 2020). The Chinese General Office of the State Council forwarded to the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments the Notice of Opinions on Accelerating the Green Transformation of Express Packaging (Guoban Letter [2020] No. 115) in December 2020, as well as the joint document issued by the General Office of Transport and eight national ministries and commissions in April 2021, Notice on the Work Related to the Promotion and Application of Standardised Logistics Crates (Jiaobao Yun [2021] No. 30), which clearly pointed out that the market and Government-led, to further promote and strengthen the governance of logistics packaging, build a modern logistics system, promote the green transformation of packaging, improve and strengthen the standard specification system of reusable packaging crates, recycling sharing system, information support and guarantee system. Therefore, as an important part of the framework of low-carbon supply chain operation practices, the promotion, application and systematic operation and management of reusable packaging has received key attention at the national and industry levels.

In-depth research and analysis through the various stages and objectives of current reusable packaging use and operation, and exploration of its research progress in the academic community. Therefore, it is of great significance in studying the theory of reusable packaging operation and management:

(1) Based on typical reusable packaging platform cases, summarise the current theoretical issues of reusable packaging operation management by comparing different reusable packaging operation processes and models. It also draws on the successful research paradigm of Business to Customer (B2C) shared service platforms to propose a digital system architecture path for its operation and build an integrated digital decision-making platform for reusable packaging shared services, based on the emerging shared service context.

(2) Combining the complex demand and dynamic behavior of reusable packaging with attribution analysis and feature analysis, we propose a set of time series prediction models for the demand and behavior of reusable packaging to fill the corresponding theoretical research gap.

(3) An effective operation management and sharing incentive strategy framework is proposed based on system revenue optimisation. The framework will provide guidance for subsequent research on the development of supply chain related issues in the production and operation management of reusable containers.

Based on the practical pain points of industry and the cooperation between industry, academia and research in typical reusable packaging enterprises, the research on the organisation and intelligent optimisation of shared services for reusable packaging in the "double carbon" strategy has significant practical implications for industrial applications:

(1) Through digital reconstruction and innovation and digital system platform architecture, we can effectively improve the depth of collaboration among the enterprises involved in reusable packaging, reduce costs and increase efficiency, encourage enterprises to integrate and optimize business processes, systematically optimize revenue management efficiency and improve the overall platform benefits.

(2) Take the demand, recycling and behaviour of platform customers with packaging as the guide, and build a prediction model based on the behavioural characteristics of platform customers. With the goal of improving the efficiency of the platform's shared services, it is conducive to promoting supply-side structural reform by enhancing the quality of the platform's services while ensuring customer satisfaction with the use of packaging.

(3) Through collaborative operation and revenue decision optimisation technology, it realises optimised control over the operation of reusable packaging apparatus and builds a set of storage and dispatch optimisation decision aids for large-scale enterprises. This will optimise the allocation of service resources and improve the utilisation rate and turnover of reusable packaging equipment.

(4) This study optimises the form of supply chain packaging management, promotes industrial upgrading and zero-carbon supply chain (double carbon) goals, and promotes sustainable development of enterprises in the chain. It is a good fit with the requirements of the National 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Circular Economy and the Notice on the Promotion and Application of Standardised Logistics Crates on the establishment of a green supply chain and reusable packaging recycling system and information support system.