Dans un monde industriel marqué par un contexte économique difficile, les entreprises se doivent d’étudier toutes les possibilités de réduction de coûts et d’optimisation de leur chaîne logistique. Un des champs récents d’optimisation développé dans la littérature concerne le concept de logistique inverse. Cette logistique représente la gestion des flux traversant une chaîne logistique dans le sens inverse des flux traditionnels. On y retrouve des activités liées au recyclage, à la réparation ou encore à la réutilisation de produits. Au sein de la Chaire Supply Chain, nous nous sommes donc intéressés à l’optimisation de la gestion de ces flux de retours, avec les contenants réutilisables comme objet d’étude intéressant pour nos différents partenaires. Dans ce sens, après avoir passé en revue la littérature sur le concept général de la logistique inverse, nous développons un ensemble de modèles recouvrant les combinaisons mono ou multi niveaux, mono ou multi périodes et mono ou multi contenants afin d’optimiser ces retours au sein de chaînes logistiques déjà définies. Ces modèles sont par la suite appliqués, soit fictivement pour un des modèles mono-période résolu grâce à une heuristique de décomposition développée pour des réseaux logistiques de grande taille, soit réellement chez nos partenaires pour les modèles multi-périodes résolus de façon exacte. Le but de ces applications étant d’utiliser ces modèles théoriques dans un contexte réel d’entreprise et d’en dégager les possibles bénéfices économiques mais également environnementaux grâce à la prise en compte des émissions liées au transport et au cycle de vie de ces contenants. / In an industrial world touched by a complicated economic environment, companies need to explore all opportunities for cost reduction and supply chain optimization. A recent optimization field developed in the literature concerns the concept of reverse logistics. This concept deals with the flows management through a supply chain in the opposite direction to the traditional one. It includes activities related to recycling, repair or products reuse. In partnership with the industrial of the “Chaire Supply Chain”, we are interested in optimizing these reverse flows by focusing more particularly on reusable containers. For that, we propose a literature review on the general concept of reverse logistics and develop a set of models covering combinations between single and multi-levels, single and multi-periods and single and multi-containers problems in order to optimize this type of returns within already defined supply chains. These models are then applied, either in a fictive way for a single-period one solved by a decomposition heuristic proposed for large logistics networks, or in a real way for multi-period models solved exactly and applied to our partners problematic. The purpose of these applications is to use these theoretical models in a real business in order to identify economic benefits but also environmental ones by taking into account emissions from these containers transportation and manufacturing.

The Florida Showcase Green Envirohome (FSGE) incorporates many green technologies. FSGE is built to meet or exceed 12 green building guidelines and obtain 8 green building certificates. The two-story 3292 ft2 home is a "Near Zero-Loss Home", "Near Zero-Energy Home", "Near Zero-Runoff Home", and "Near Zero-Maintenance Home". It is spawned from the consumer-driven necessity to build a home resistant to hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, fire, mold, termites, impacts, and even earthquakes given up to 500% increase in insurance premiums in natural disaster zones, the dwindling flexibility and coverage of insurance policies, and rising energy, water and maintenance costs (FSGE 2008). The FSGE captures its stormwater runoff from the green roof, metal roof and wood decking area and routes it to the sustainable water cistern. Graywater from the home (after being disinfected using ozone) is also routed to the sustainable water cistern. This water stored in the sustainable water cistern is used for irrigation of the green roof, ground level landscape, and for toilet flushing water. This study was done in two phases. During phase one, only stormwater runoff from the green roof, metal roof and wood decking area is routed to the sustainable water cistern. Then, during phase two, the water from the graywater system is added to the sustainable water cistern. The sustainable water cistern quality is analyzed during both phases to determine if the water is acceptable for irrigation and also if it is suitable for use as toilet flushing water. The water quality of the sustainable cistern is acceptable for irrigation. The intent of the home is to not pollute the environment, so as much nutrients as possible should be removed from the wastewater before it is discharged into the groundwater. Thus, the FSGE design is to evaluate a new on-site sewage treatment and disposal (OSTD) system which consists of a sorption media labeled as Bold and GoldTM filtration media. The Bold and GoldTM filtration media is a mixture of tire crumb and other materials. This new OSTD system has sampling ports through the system to monitor the wastewater quality as it passes through. Also, the effluent wastewater quality is compared to that of a conventional system on the campus of the University of Central Florida. The cost-benefit optimization model focused on designing a residential home which incorporated a green roof, cistern and graywater systems. This model had two forms, the base model and the grey linear model. The base model used current average cost of construction of materials and installation. The grey model used an interval for the cost of construction materials and green roof energy savings. Both models included a probabilistic term to describe the rainfall amount. The cost and energy operation of a typical Florida home was used as a case study for these models. Also, some of the parameters of the model were varied to determine their effect on the results. The modeling showed that the FSGE 4500 gallon cistern design was cost effective in providing irrigation water. Also, the green roof area could have been smaller to be cost effective, because the green roof cost is relatively much higher than the cost of a regular roof.