Analyzing internal barriers for automotive parts remanufacturers in China using grey-DEMATEL approach

Automotive industries have attracted attention from international sectors recently. This attention to the industry results in many innovative technologies being integrated in these manufacturing arenas. In developing countries such as the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries, especially China who is a global leader in automotive sales and production, researchers see substantial attempts to increase economic and societal values in automotive sectors through the use of many sustainable strategies. Among these sustainable strategies, remanufacturing has witnessed much debate in recent years. In China, automotive parts remanufacturing is still in a nascent stage, but the country is striving hard to implement a strategy in industries to result in cleaner production. Additionally, remanufacturing yields high financial, societal, and environmental returns, and it provides advantages such as reducing costs (compared to virgin products), an increase in jobs, and the conservation of scare resources. Some earlier studies examined Chinese remanufacturing issues but they only focused on modeling concepts, without considering significant barriers. To bridge this gap, this paper analyzes internal barriers met by automotive parts remanufacturers and evaluates causal barriers by a proposed model framework. This objective is illustrated by employing the Grey Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) approach. By virtue of these findings, remanufacturers can eradicate major internal barriers and can increase the chances of practicing more productive remanufacturing in the Chinese automotive environments. This study extends the scope of this problem through varied applications of different techniques such as a fuzzy approach, matrix laboratory, and operations research tools by diversifying and including additional barriers. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.