José Angel González Manteca

Reverse Logistics Practices for Recovering Mobile Phones in Spain

The main objective of this article is to characterize the reverse logistics system for mobile phones in Spain. The study includes the characterization of the different actors involved in the reverse logistics system and the description of the most common logistics practices in the sector. We will also propose alternative practices for managing this complex reverse logistics system and finally, we analyse the challenges of the current reverse logistics model. Some alternatives for the current model are location of reception points for end-of-use mobiles, the need to legislate the secondhand mobile phone market, and the location of the necessary recycling centres according to current legislation.The main objective of this paper is to characterize the reverse logistics system for mobile phones in Spain. The study includes the characterization of the different actors involved in the reverse logistics system and the description of the most common logistics practices in the sector. We will also propose alternative practices for managing this complex reverse logistics system and finally, we will analyse the challenges of the current reverse logistics model. Some alternatives for the current model are: location of reception points for end-of-use mobiles, the need to legislate the second-hand mobile phone market and the location of the necessary recycling centres according to current legislation.

Reverse Logistics for Used Portable Batteries in Spain: An Analytical Proposal for Collecting Batteries

The disposal of batteries is a problem that has grown in the last few years, due to the increase in the use of portable devices. The main goal of this paper is to propose an analytic model for helping logistics managers to choose the appropriate location points in order to situate the collection points for used portable batteries in the Spanish context. The objective of the model is to collect, in an efficient way, the maximum number of portable batteries. The proposed model has two parts: a static part and a dynamic part. In the first part of the model (static part) we will compare the potential candidates for each alternative. It is based on the multicriteria method called Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). In the second part of the model, the input parameters will be: the global mark for each alternative we have calculated before and the distance between potential candidates. As a result of this part, the model will select the recommended collection points according to the criteria defined before. We can conclude that this model helps managers in the decision of locating/modifying collection points in two ways: to add new collection points to a reverse logistics network that needs more points or to delete collection points from a network that has more points than those recommended.

AntLib v1.0: A Generic C++ Framework for Ant Colony Optimization

This paper introduces AntLib, an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) framework. C++ developed; it is a generic framework that can be applied with almost no adaptations to any combinatorial optimization problem. AntLib is a reusable object oriented framework, based on several well known design patterns [2].

Automatic Generation of Transshipment and Loading Plans Through a Linear Programming Model in Railway Terminal

Before the aggressive consequences of European merchandise transport modes imbalance, which results from excessive use of roads and highways, increasing railway transport can make an evolution to a sustainable model easier. The hypothesis of this chapter consists in the possible contribution of quantitative models for operations improvement that take place in railway stations. Their contributions can help to improve service levels of combined transport modes, increasing their competitiveness and providing a more sustainable mobility system. This investigation has developed a model that provides trains’ automatic transferring plans generation. Particularly, the developed model for transferring containers between trains shows improvement in time response and in solutions quality related to classic manual systems used to deal with this task. The comparison among the given solutions by this model and the ones given by the traditional methods of railway companies shows without doubts improvements provided by the developed computer application.