Consumer Behavior Modeling in System Design for Ease-of-repair and Ease-of-return

Capturing suncertainties in consumer behavior can lead to better handling of sustainable design, manufacturing, and logistics operations throughout the entire life cycle of products. The sustainability decision-making problems such as managing end-of-use/life products acquisition, incorporating historical life cycle data into recovery planning, and characterizing the social, environmental, and economic outcome of adopting sustainable design strategies cannot be well investigated and understood without considering the behavioral decision-making of consumers. Considering the role of consumers, we aim at designing an effective take-back program, estimating the reusability of disposed of consumer electronic devices, characterizing the environmental impact of design alternatives, and quantifying the value losses in the electronic waste recovery management systems. We have explored the consumers’ usage, repair, and return behaviors; and shown that how these behaviors can be controlled and directed towards more effective resources consumption in a circular economy. In this dissertation, to study the defined problems, we developed several data-driven and analytical models—including a probabilistic economic model, a life cycle assessment model with the stochastic inventory, and a game theoretic model and provided the results.

Grantor dc:publisher

State University of New York at Buffalo

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Sabbaghi, Mostafa; 0000-0002-9961-5691

Contributors dc:contributor

• Behdad, Sara
• Industrial and Systems Engineering

• Industrial engineering
• environmental management
• mechanical engineering

Statement dc:rights

• Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.
• Copyright retained by author.

Language dc:language

eng

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10477/77995

OAI record oai:identifier

https://ubir.buffalo.edu/oai/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=qdc&identifier=oai%3Aubir.buffalo.edu%3A10477%2F77995