Circular supply chain design with neutrosophic optimization for tackling market cannibalization

Linear economy is no longer sustainable due to rapid depletion of natural resources and excessive waste generation. This has increased the demand for resource conservation, particularly in home appliance industry, where recovery of end-of-life products remains a pressing challenge due to shorter product lifespan. This highlights the need to transition business practices from the linear to the circular economy. To tackle these challenges, this study develops a two-phase circular supply chain decision-support tool that integrates circular economy principles into a business. In phase I, cost-effective circular product design is developed using end-of-life strategies such as reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling, modeled using MILP. The resulting circular product design cost is embedded in Phase II, where multi-objective circular supply chain model is developed to maximize profitability, productivity performance, and job creation. Neutrosophic optimization is utilized for Phase II to handle uncertainities like cannibalization effect, return rate, and defect rate for robust and accurate solutions. For model validation, circular washing machine supply chain case study is presented that indicates that optimal circular product design comprises 24 % reuse, 58 % remanufacture, and 18 % recyclable components, yielding optimized profit. The model also achieves 73 % productivity performance and 76 % increase in employment opportunities is created due to transportation related activities. Sensitivity analysis highlights the trade-off between recovery cost and profit confirming the robustness of the model. Methodological comparison with augmented epsilon constraint and interactive multi-objective fuzzy programming further validate the efficiency of the developed model. Thus, this research integrates circular economy principles with uncertain decision making providing a practical framework for circular transformation of manufacturing organizations.