ABSTRACT
Shorter product life cycles and premature disposal of products are two major consequences of rapid technological advancement in product technology. Multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques have received considerable attention from researchers, since those techniques can simultaneously consider more than one objective. This chapter presents an overview of the state of the art of MCDM techniques applied in environmentally conscious manufacturing and product recovery (ECMPRO) problems. It discusses employing quantitative MCDM techniques and presents the studies using qualitative techniques. The reviewed studies are classified into five categories: quantitative techniques, qualitative techniques, mixed techniques, heuristics and metaheuristics, and simulation. The chapter provides a detailed analysis of heuristics- and metaheuristics-based studies. A heuristic can be defined as a technique that seeks or finds good solutions to a difficult model. A metaheuristic extends the heuristic concept by exploiting ideas and concepts from another discipline to help solve the artificial system being modeled.
