Laboratoire d'Informatique de Grenoble

The Circular Economy aims at minimizing resource inputs, waste, and pollution by keeping as long as possible products, components, and materials in use. This could be reached by product design strategies or E-o-L (End of Life) activities (also called Circular Economy activities), such as reuse, remanufacturing, repurposing, recycling, etc. Circular Supply Chains, which integrate the Circular Economy approach into supply chains, support these activities and play an important role in the application of Circular Economy principles. Various concepts in the literature such as Closed-Loop Supply Chains, Reverse Logistics, Green Supply Chains, etc., have been already explored the integration of Circular Economy activities in supply chains. However, the Circular Economy concept brings some new approaches: (1) applying multiple Circular Economy activities in parallel rather than applying single activities, (2) using materials over and over again, and (3) promoting open-loops between distinct sectors through repurposing. In addition, repurposing activity has not been sufficiently explored so far. However, this activity adds value to used products by diverting them from their initial purpose and using them in less demanding applications. This could be a new potential mean to increasing circularity in Circular Supply Chains. Besides, the lack of knowledge and awareness about Circular Supply Chains constitutes a challenging barrier for Supply Chain managers. Therefore, the implications of Circular Economy in supply chains need to be explored, structured and formalized. New tools are also needed to promote the Circular Supply Chains and support their design and evolution. The main objective of this Ph.D. thesis is to explore and conceptualize supply chains structures in the context of Circular Economy. We aim at creating methods and tools to support Circular Supply Chain design and evolution, considering repurposing activity as a first-class Circular Economy strategy. The main contributions of this thesis are: (1) A generic model formalized by using the Unified Modeling Language (UML) to design Circular Supply Chains, (2) A classification tool for Circular Supply Chain indicators, where different circularity dimensions are described, (3) A new indicator to assess the circularity of Supply Chains, and (4) A serious game to promote Circular Supply Chains and increase knowledge and awareness about their structures and Circular Economy activities involved. Finally, adopting As-IS/As-IF framework, the aforementioned contributions are integrated into a first version of a continual evolution method. This method helps identifying possible evolutions to improve the circularity of supply chains.