EFFECT OF THE INTER-FIRM FACILITY SHARING ON RESOURCE CIRCULATION

We provide two models to investigate the effect of the inter-firm recycling facility sharing on facility location pattern and resource circulation. In the first "independent model", both of two firms independently locate manufacturing facilities and recycling facilities. Each firm independently decides the location of its own facilities, in order to minimize the total cost, which consists of the facility location cost and the transportation cost. In order to grasp the effect of the recycling facility sharing, we also provide the second "sharing model", which permits the recycling facility sharing; both of the two firms collectively decide the location of facilities, as well as which recycling facility to share. We investigated the difference in the facility location patterns from those 2 models and found that recycling facilities will move from central region to the outskirts by permitting the facility sharing. We also found that the facility sharing does not always enhance the recovery rate of the used products, for example, in case of high recycling technology.