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In a quest to meet increasing pressure to incorporate environmental and sustainability factors due to the legislations and growing public awareness, companies are rethinking of strategizing their supply chain network to take control of the reverse flow of products as well. This growing interest has also led to tremendous growth in publications occurring in several reputed journals in the last few years. In this context, the purpose of this article is to perform a systematic literature survey of recent and state-of-the-art papers in order to draw insights and highlight the future directions.

This paper has selected and reviewed 204 papers published from the year 2002–2017. The papers were collected from the web of science and Google scholar database which have the DOI number. The selected papers were then categorized into main five core areas of RSC management namely reverse supply chain (RSC), Reverse Logistics (RL), Remanufacturing, Closed-Loop Supply Chain (CLSC) and Product Recovery Systems (PRS) and then analyzed with great detail. Finally, the research gaps that were identified from the study have been highlighted for future research opportunities.

This paper would serve as a roadmap to the managers who wish to align their forward and reverse supply chains for overall growth and development. It provides an in-depth knowledge on RSC to the researchers working in this domain. The scholars would be able to identify the areas of RSC which have been already addressed and the areas which remain unaddressed.

This paper presents a systematic literature survey of state-of-the-art papers that was published in the reputed journal in the area of RSC. Total 204 numbers of papers which were published in the reputed journals between 2002 and 2017 are reviewed, categorized and analysed to draw the opportunities and future research direction in the area of RSC.

The purpose of this study is to review the existing fatigue and vibration-based structural health monitoring techniques and highlight the advantages of combining both approaches.

Fatigue monitoring requires a fatigue model of the material, the stresses at specific points of the structure, a cycle counting technique and a fatigue damage criterion. Firstly, this paper reviews existing structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques, addresses their principal classifications and presents the main characteristics of each technique, with a particular emphasis on modal-based methodologies. Automated modal analysis, damage detection and localisation techniques are also reviewed. Fatigue monitoring is an SHM technique which evaluate the structural fatigue damage in real time. Stress estimation techniques and damage accumulation models based on the S-N field and the Miner rule are also reviewed in this paper.

A vast amount of research has been carried out in the field of SHM. The literature about fatigue calculation, fatigue testing, fatigue modelling and remaining fatigue life is also extensive. However, the number of publications related to monitor the fatigue process is scarce. A methodology to perform real-time structural fatigue monitoring, in both time and frequency domains, is presented.

Fatigue monitoring can be combined (applied simultaneously) with other vibration-based SHM techniques, which might significantly increase the reliability of the monitoring techniques.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the various disposition alternatives and to develop a framework for the optimal disposition decisions in reverse logistics.

In reverse logistics, once the products are collected and inspected, decision is to be taken regarding their disposition for reuse, re-manufacture or recycle or other possible alternatives. A combination of analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) approach is proposed for the selection of best disposition alternative based on criteria economic benefits, environmental benefits, corporate social responsibility, stakeholder’s needs and reverse logistics resources.

A case of electronics firm was illustrated for the demonstration of the approach for the disposition of mobile phones. Returned mobile phones must be disposed for repairing or reuse in current business scenario, if possible. Otherwise, the firm may prefer to recycle them rather than dispose or remanufacture.

The study is limited to mobile manufacturing firm. Also, these findings may vary depending on the sector and products. Further, empirical studies and case studies can be carried out to validate the findings.

The proposed framework provides useful tool to the practitioners and researchers in decision-making for disposition in reverse logistics.

Very few studies related to disposition decisions in reverse logistics were found in the previous research literature review. The study will add value to the very limited research on reverse logistics disposition. Also, the AHP-Fuzzy TOPSIS approach is first time being used for the disposition decisions in reverse logistics.

The main purpose of the paper is the validation of a broad range of RANS turbulence models, for the prediction of flow and heat transfer, for a broad range of boundary conditions and geometrical configurations, for this class of problems.

Two‐ and three‐dimensional computations are performed using a general‐purpose CFD code based on a finite volume method and a pressure‐correction formulation. Special attention is paid to achieve a high numerical accuracy by applying second order discretization schemes and stringent convergence criteria, as well as performing sensitivity studies with respect to the grid resolution, computational domain size and boundary conditions. Results are assessed by comparing the predictions with the measurements available in the literature.

A rather unsatisfactory performance of the Reynolds stress model is observed, in general, although the contrary has been expected in this rotating flow, exhibiting a predominantly non‐isotropic turbulence structure. The best overall agreement with the experiments is obtained by the k‐ω model, where the SST model is also observed to provide a quite good performance, which is close to that of the k‐ω model, for most of the investigated cases.

To date, computational investigation of turbulent jet impinging on to “rotating” disk has not received much attention. To the best of the authors' knowledge, a thorough numerical analysis of the generic problem comparable with present study has not yet been attempted.

This study proposes strategies for vaccine center allocation for coronavirus disease (COVID) vaccine by determining the number of vaccination stations required for the vaccination drive, location of vaccination station, assignment of demand group to vaccination station, allocation of the scarce medical professional teams to station and number of optimal days a vaccination station to be functional in a week.

The authors propose a mixed-integer nonlinear programming model. However, to handle nonlinearity, the authors devise a heuristic and then propose a two-stage mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) formulation to optimize the allocation of vaccination centers or stations to demand groups in the first stage and the allocation of vaccination centers to cold storage links in the second stage. The first stage optimizes the cost and average distance traveled by people to reach the vaccination center, whereas the second stage optimizes the vaccine’s holding and storage and transportation cost by efficiently allocating cold storage links to the centers.

The model is studied for the real-world case of Chandigarh, India. The results obtained validate that the proposed approach can immensely help government agencies and policymaking body for a successful vaccination drive. The model tries to find a tradeoff between loss due to underutilized medical teams and the distance traveled by a demand group to get the vaccination.

To the best of our knowledge, there are hardly any studies on a vaccination program at such a scale due to sudden outbreaks such as Covid-19.

The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of servicer and cross‐seller functional performance on salesperson perception of cross‐functional conflict.

Frontline employees often specialize in selling, servicing, or cross‐selling to customers. Two studies separately examine the effect of servicer and cross‐seller functional performance on salesperson perception of cross‐functional conflict.

In Study 1, salesperson conflict with frontline specialists who do not directly sell, called servicers, is examined and it is found that salespeople perceive less cross‐functional conflict when servicers perform well. Group cohesion decreases conflict directly. The effect of servicer performance on conflict is less pronounced as cross‐functional training increases. In Study 2, salesperson conflict with employees who cross‐sell additional goods and/or services to customers, called cross‐sellers, is evaluated and it is found that salespeople perceive more cross‐functional conflict when cross‐sellers perform well. Cross‐functional training decreases conflict directly. The effect of cross‐seller performance on conflict is less pronounced as group cohesion increases.

The research was carried out in a single setting, automobile dealerships, and only two controls, one formal and one informal, were examined.

The results indicate that salespeople view the performance of each type of specialist differently depending on the specialists' goals. Based on this finding, the paper provides guidelines for which formal and informal controls are likely to be effective for reducing conflict between different frontline functions.

The paper shows that salespeople view servicer performance positively and cross‐seller performance negatively. Thus, the research adds to the understanding of cross‐functional relationships among specialized frontline employees.

Cross-selling becomes critical for business success as pent-up travel demand drives travelers to spend more on vacations. The primary purpose of this research is to identify if an unexpected discount leads to consumers' additional purchases online. This research proposes effective cross-selling strategies across hospitality sectors.

Two experiments were conducted to investigate factors that influence travelers' add-on spending. Study 1 determined the psychological mechanism of unexpected discounts on hotel customers' additional spending by individual thinking styles. A 2 (discount: none vs surprise) x 2 (thinking style: holistic vs analytic) quasi-experimental design was utilized. Study 2 applied the identified pricing strategy by individual thinking styles to cruise line add-on selling. A 2 (discount: none vs surprise) x 2 (product type: hedonic vs utilitarian) x 2 thinking style (holistic vs analytic) quasi-experiment was used.

The findings indicate that an unexpected discount increases holistic thinkers' overall travel spending, regardless of add-on types. Although the unexpected discount effect on analytic thinkers' overall spending was significant, an unexpected discount enhanced their intentions to purchase a hedonic add-on.

Hospitality operators can improve cross-selling strategies with a surprise discount offer. Offering add-on items in the same transaction with a cabin booking will increase add-on purchases. Hotels can make add-on purchases more appealing by emphasizing the experiential aspects of a hotel stay.

This research broadens knowledge of cross-selling by linking add-on purchases to discount pricing on a primary product. The findings provide new strategies to stimulate add-on purchases and maximize profitability.

Increased demand and the pressure to reduce health-care costs have led to longer waiting time for patients to make appointments and during the day of hospital visits. The purpose of this study is to identify opportunities to reduce waiting time using lean techniques and discrete-event simulation (DES).

A five-step procedure is proposed to facilitate the effective utilization of lean and DES to improve the performance of the Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery Outpatient Clinic at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. While lean techniques were applied to reduce the potential sources of waste by aligning processes, a DES model was developed to validate the proposed solutions and plan patient arrivals under dynamic conditions and different scenarios.

Aligning processes resulted in an efficient patient flow reducing both waiting times. DES played a complementary role in verifying lean solutions under dynamic conditions, helping to plan the patient arrivals and striking a balance between the waiting times. The proposed solutions offered flexibility to improve the clinic capacity from the current 176 patients up to 479 (without violating the 30 min waiting time policy) or to reduce the patient waiting time during the visit from the current 33 min to 4.5 min (without violating the capacity goal of 333 patients).

Proposing and validating lean solutions require reliable data to be collected from the clinic and such a process could be laborious as data collection require patient and resource tracing without interfering with the regular functions of the clinic.

The work enables health-care managers to conveniently conduct a trade-off analysis and choose a suitable inter-arrival time – for every physician – that would satisfy their objectives between resource utilization (clinic capacity) and average patient waiting time.

Successful implementation of lean requires a supportive and cooperative culture from all stakeholders involved.

This study presents an original and detailed application of lean techniques with DES to reduce patient waiting times. The adopted approach in this study could be generalized to other health-care settings with similar objectives.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of frontline service employees (FSEs) motivation (enjoyment of work and driven to work) and ability (customer service ability) in the relationship between TFL and employee service performance.

This is a survey-based study which involves 534 FSEs and 135 supervisors in a hair salon setting. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the proposed hypotheses.

Results show that TFL is significantly related to employee service performance; this relationship is enhanced with the presence of driven to work; yet, it is neutralized with the presence of enjoyment of work. Further, the three-way interaction of TFL, enjoyment of work and customer service ability as well as TFL driven to work, and customer service ability are negatively associated with employee service performance.

The results advance service managers’ understanding of the importance of FSEs motivation and ability if they are to fully reap the benefits from their FSEs. The role of leader is not always effective in all situations. FSEs with high level of enjoyment of work and customer service ability would least rely on the guidance and support from the supervisors.

This research is one of the first to examine the role of subordinate’s characteristics (motivation – enjoyment of work and driven to work and ability – customer service ability) as the key moderators in the relationship between TFL and employee service performance.

The purpose of this paper is to be the first to explicate the determinants of customers’ cross‐buying intentions in the banking services of Korea and Taiwan, and then explore the influence of cross‐cultural values, such as “Collectivism”, to the relationships between these determinants and customers’ cross‐buying intentions.

The authors employed a triangulation approach of structured surveys to 700 actual customers, and six interviews with professional senior managers engaged in customers’ cross‐buying activities of banking services in two countries – Korea and Taiwan. Confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchal multiple regression were conducted on these data using AMOS 10.1 and SPSS 12.0.

“Perceived value”, “Trust”, “Image”, and “Satisfaction” were found to be the determinants of customers’ cross‐buying intentions in the banking services of Korea and Taiwan, out of which “Trust” and “Satisfaction” were significantly influenced by “Collectivism”. The research also confirms that, even between countries with similar level of “Collectivism”, its influence can differ according to the determinants of cross‐buying intentions in banking services.

The conceptual model presented in this paper could be extended and tested on customers in an “Individualistic” culture, in future research. The analysis in the research could also be further elaborated for specific segments of customers.