Remanufacturing facility location for automotive Lithium-ion batteries: An integrated neutrosophic decision-making model

Abstract Automobile Lithium-ion battery (ALiB) is a fast-evolving technology that found widespread utilization in electric vehicles (EVs). Management of used ALiBs has become a crucial topic in the automotive industry and academic researches. ALiB remanufacturing is significant leverage to accomplish the circular economy paradigm, but many open questions still exist. This study addresses the following main research questions: (i) Which evaluation criteria influence the strategic decisions on locating ALiB remanufacturing facilities? (ii) How to determine the best location under uncertainty? To answer these questions and promote sustainable development of the EV industry, this study introduces a three-stage integrated neutrosophic decision-making model for the location selection of an ALiB remanufacturing facility. Key evaluation criteria are identified to offer a decision-making framework for practitioners. This study employs advanced type-2 neutrosophic numbers (T2NNs) to reduce the vagueness in experts’ decision-making preferences and avoid erroneous facility location decisions. The innovative usage of the hierarchical best-worst method (BWM) is presented to select optimal evaluation criteria weights with the lowest subjectivity and biasedness. The combinative distance based assessment (CODAS) method is extended under the T2NN environment to rank location alternatives. A case study provides decision-making guidelines on how to identify the best location for an ALiB remanufacturing facility in the real-world context. Our findings indicate that “Gemlik/Bursa” is the best location in Turkey. The high reliability and robustness of the integrated neutrosophic decision-making model are demonstrated with the comparison and sensitivity analyses. The proposed model could solve other circular economy-related location problems.