Decision and Information Synergy for Improving Product Recovery Performance

An approach for demonstrating the impact of product information and decision synergy on the effectiveness of product recovery decisions is vital. The evaluation approach presented in this paper suggests various actors that can play a part in a product's lifecycle to quantify the benefit of making relevant product information available for decisions to the product recoverer. The expected benefit of information is positive if and only if at least one of the outcomes of the observation has the ability to change (flexible) the recovery decision maker's alternative of the recovery option. Therefore, it was observed that availability of information need not always yield a positive benefit in terms of improved decision leading to improved recovery system performance. This led us to identify the conditions of synergy for improving decision by collecting more or appropriate level of information. This paper also proposes a semi or partially flexible decision model that facilitates flexible decision and information interoperability functions from the perspective of an enterprise engaged in or to be engaged in product recovery.