An Approach to the Facility Layout Problem in Reverse and Bi-Directional Logistics Context

During the past decades, Reverse Logistics (RL) has received much attention. Its incorporation and implementation modify the space necessity of the enterprises and the optimal way of the plant resources configuration, basically because new needs of space arise for recovery products, inspection, storage, and for disposal activities. Hence, the facility layout problem (FLP) for enterprises with RL needs should consider new aspects derived from reverse and bi-directional (forward and reverse) flows. However, research results show work mainly focused on FLP and on RL separately. Nevertheless, the lack of a review study on this subject is a gap that has not been regarded so far. In this paper, a literature review is presented to define the FLP in a reverse and bi-directional logistics context. The literature references in the field of facility layout and RL are gathered, categorized, and reviewed. The contributions are analysed form different perspectives. Finally, several issues are highlighted to be investigated in future work.