Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you very much for sending the revision and addressed my previous comments. While I am impressed with the effort of authors in addressing these comments, I still have major concerns relating to the motivation in the paper. I elaborate on these concerns as follow.

It is unclear how the authors argue for the relationship between uncertainty in lead time and carbon emission cost. In the introduction section, the authors argue that "Existing studies have demonstrated that the lead time is a key factor that affects supply chain performance [3]. If lead time is uncertain, the situation is more complex from both a cost and a service view. Now a new indicator of supply chain performance, carbon emission cost must be cared for sustainable supply chain development. Therefore, there is a need to explore the relationship between carbon emission cost and uncertain lead time." I do not see a strong logic here. The question is why lead time relates to carbon emission cost? Why understanding this relationship is important? "Consequently, we may find the suitable order policies to balance the different performance indicators and dampen the negative impact of uncertain lead time." Which are these different performance indicators? What are the research contributions? Why the authors claim to explore the relationship between carbon emission cost and uncertain lead time, the conclusion does not discuss this relationship. The managerial implications need to be strengthened.

Author Response

Please see attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Content of the paper

The paper introduces the aspect of carbon costs in the supply chain concept and the impact of stochastic transportation lead times on system performance. For that purpose, the authors modify a basic model named APVIOBPCS that stands for “automatic pipeline, variable inventory, and order based on production control system model” to account for stochastic transportation lead times. They further account for order crossing and extend the model by system dynamics.

The first revision of the paper was quite well written and well structured. But it seems that this has changed to a worsened state. Some sentences are quite awkward and wrong in grammar, e.g., Page 1, lines 11-14, “While the environmental performance in supply chain is getting more concern, it becomes an important problem that the function mechanism of how uncertain lead time have on sustainable performance of the supply chain.” Newly introduced sentences add to this, e.g., “Applying the system dynamics model, the dynamic change process can be emerged with different complex situation”. The paper needs revision from an English native peaking person and should not be accepted in the current form.

As stated in a previous review, the authors assume that the reader is familiar with many concepts in the supply chain context. Consequently, more explanations from the authors side would render the paper more understandable to a broader spectrum of readers as well as more comprehensive. Some of the concepts that need (shorter or longer) explanations are stated in the following:

Bullwhip effect mentioned on Page 2: far too general and short explanation that was added; no reference was added. From the text, it is not quite clear if the authors understand the bullwhip effect themselves. The same is valid for the explanation of the APVIOBPCS model mentioned first on Page 4, now Page 6 The explanation of the POUT policy is weak and difficult to understand (“(…) part of APVIOBPCS decision cluster. When inventory adjustment parameter is equal to WIP adjustment parameter, APVIOBPCS policy is called as a POUT policy”). Other papers in this area are much clearer about the model which is not a good sign for the presented paper. This comment has not been taken into consideration by the authors: It would be interesting to know if the WIP inventory mentioned here (first on Page 5) is similar or equivalent to the pipeline inventory. Please explain this. The sentence on Page 6, line 227 “In other words, stockouts is fulfilled from the new demand D_{t+1} in the next period” should be rephrased as this is not comprehensible or deleted (the second option might be the better one)

This comment has also not been considered: “Moreover, the authors state on Page 7 (now Page 8) that to capture/calculate correctly carbon emissions in warehouse processes is difficult. This is surely true, but is it a solution to (just) assume an inventory carbon cost per product taken from somewhere without considering the effect of this parameter on the results of the supply chain performance analysis? It would highly urge the authors to take this into account to enhance insights to their analysis.”

Some minor things are given in the following: For instance, the authors state on Page 2, line 58, that the system they analyze is non-linear, but they do not (at least shortly) discuss which factors lead to non-linearity. It is done on Page 2, line 143, but I would recommend it where it is firstly mentioned.

Typesetting and style

(…) Page 9, line 281: sentence has not main clause: “Because this paper focuses on the dynamic change of carbon cost with the product quantity.” Page 10, line 317: which part of Figure 3 are you referring in the text when writing “The with area in Figure 3 represents”? Many more… let the paper be checked.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Pls see attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for addressing my comments. The paper is publishable.

Reviewer 2 Report

Critiques and feedback of the review have been adequately addressed in the revised version of the paper.