Abstract Pure remanufacturing systems and their respective supply chains are increasingly common in many industries. However, the scientific community has paid little attention to such systems, and thus their dynamics are still not well understood. To address this gap, we build an archetype by generalising the real-world closed-loop supply chain of pure remanufacturers across different industries. Through control engineering, we study its mathematical properties and their impact on performance. We benchmark it against two extensively studied models: traditional manufacturing systems and hybrid manufacturing-remanufacturing systems. We show the proportional order-up-to policy to be a promising approach to streamline the operations of pure remanufacturers, and we highlight critical trade-offs that need to be recognised by decision-makers to improve their control. Through simulation, we identify effective management strategies for these closed-loop supply chains, enabling remanufacturers to improve customer satisfaction while reducing inventory and capacity requirements. Key drivers for enhancing closed-loop supply chain dynamics include increasing pre-evaluation accuracy, reducing remanufacturing lead times, and improving the quality of reverse logistics operations. Additionally, synchronised tuning of the different inventory controllers becomes imperative for optimising overall performance.
Ponte et al. (2026) studied this question.