A New Product Configuration Model for Low Product Cost and Carbon-Neutral Expenditure

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In the opinion of the reviewer, this article qualifies for adoption and publication in its original form. The reviewer points out the very good organization of the individual sections of the article and the high substantive level. No critical comments - congratulations to the authors!

Author Response

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers' comments concerning our manuscript entitled ‘A New Product Configuration Model for Low Product Cost and Carbon Neutral Expenditure’. We are honored to receive your approval for our article. 

Thank you and best regards.

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper deals with the problems related to carbon emissions. The authors made thorough analysis and presented the model that can be beneficial both for governments and industry. The overall impression is very high. The paper has a good logical flow, it is ease to read, as it incorporates all the necessary components of the good research paper. Nevertheless, please consider the following comments to further improve the quality of the paper:

Please include research questions at the end of the literature review section to indicate the purpose of your research.

I understand the logic of your discussion. However, it would be beneficial for the quality of the research to compare your results and proposed method to those mentioned in the literature review.

As I said in the beginning, the main purpose of my suggestions is just to have minor improvements to the already well prepared paper.

Best of luck!

 

 

The style of the paper concerning language quality is on appropriate level.

 

Author Response

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers' comments concerning our manuscript entitled ‘A New Product Configuration Model for Low Product Cost and Carbon Neutral Expenditure’. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer's comments are as flowing:

Response to reviewer:

Q1. Please include research questions at the end of the literature review section to indicate the purpose of your research.

A: Thank you for your comments. We supplemented the research questions and purpose at the end of the literature review. Specific information is as follows: ‘From the above review, the research on product configuration in a carbon-neutral global context should not be limited to reducing CO₂ emissions, but also need to focus on the economic benefits of CO₂ removal. Therefore, we propose a product configuration model for carbon neutral cost based on existing carbon removal technologies to fill this gap. The breakthrough of the proposed model is to add the consideration of economic benefits, on the basis of the previous low-carbon product configuration only focusing on environmental issues.’

Q2. It would be beneficial for the quality of the research to compare your results and proposed method to those mentioned in the literature review.

A: It's a good question. However, to the best of our knowledge, we are the first team to introduce carbon neutral costs into a product configuration model, so there is not a suitable comparison point in the field. Therefore, we compared the most common product configuration models that optimize for carbon emissions.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

In general, the work that was conducted addresses the central question posed in the paper. It is adequately referenced with all the cited references being relevant to the research. Moreover, the modelling techniques and the adopted methodology are the appropriate. However, there are some detected issues mainly regarding the conceptual framework, the presentation of the results and the “conclusions” part.

Particularly:

- Overall: The paper has many common elements with the following paper:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207543.2010.544337?journalCode=tprs20

It is highly recommended to revise many points to reduce similarity. For instance, sub-section 3.4.1.

- Introduction: No clear motivation for the paper has been stated. You should focus on this aspect. You should explicitly declare which is the motivation to conduct the present study and additionally to “build” the conceptual framework of the study on this motivation.

-Related work section: You should add a paragraph in the end of this section where you will state explicitly which is your contribution in the existing literature.

- Line 161: Correct the numbering. It is 2.3 and not 2.2.

- Section 4 “NSGA-II Optimization Model”: The title of the section is very close to the title of the previous section and it is difficult to the reader to distinguish the difference. I recommend renaming the section in “Utilized Algorithm”.

- Section 5 “Case Study”. This way of presentation of the results (through a case study) is very common and platitudinous in relevant studies. My suggestion is to think for a different way to “verify” and present the results in order to be more “attractable” to the reader.

Line 548: Correct the numbering. It is 6 and not 5.

- The conclusions’ section needs elaboration. More specifically, it seems to me that you end up with a short summary of the study and you just declare the limitation of the study. Since you have available many results for analysis you should emphasize to the outcome of policy or to the direction of potential implications derived from the study.

Author Response

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers' comments concerning our manuscript entitled ‘A New Product Configuration Model for Low Product Cost and Carbon Neutral Expenditure’. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer's comments are as flowing:

Response to reviewer:

Q1. Introduction: No clear motivation for the paper has been stated. You should focus on this aspect. You should explicitly declare which is the motivation to conduct the present study and additionally to “build” the conceptual framework of the study on this motivation.

A: Thank you for your comments. As suggested by reviewers, we emphasize the research motivation in the Introduction section, as follows: ‘Toward this end, a carbon neutral cost model needs to be constructed to reveal the impact of supplier selection on reducing carbon neutral expenditure.’ And, the research framework is in Lines 76-82.

 

Q2. Related work section: You should add a paragraph in the end of this section where you will state explicitly which is your contribution in the existing literature.

A: As suggested by reviewers, we supplemented our contribution at the end of the literature review. Specific information is as follows: ‘From the above review, the research on product configuration in a carbon-neutral global context should not be limited to reducing CO₂ emissions, but also need to focus on the economic benefits of CO₂ removal. Therefore, we propose a product configuration model for carbon neutral cost based on existing carbon removal technologies to fill this gap. The breakthrough of the proposed model is to add the consideration of economic benefits, on the basis of the previous low-carbon product configuration only focusing on environmental issues.’

Q3. Line 161: Correct the numbering. It is 2.3 and not 2.2.

A: As suggested by reviewers, we changed the numbering of section 2.3.

Q4. Section 4 “NSGA-II Optimization Model”: The title of the section is very close to the title of the previous section and it is difficult to the reader to distinguish the difference. I recommend renaming the section in “Utilized Algorithm”.

A: As suggested by reviewers, we change the title of section 4 to ‘Utilized Algorithm’.

Q5. Section 5 “Case Study”. This way of presentation of the results (through a case study) is very common and platitudinous in relevant studies. My suggestion is to think for a different way to “verify” and present the results in order to be more “attractable” to the reader.

A: We understand the reviewer's view of the logic of Section 5. However, this method of writing is common in our field of study. Examples include the following references:

1. Liu, X.; Du, G.; Jiao, R. J.; Xia, Y., Co-evolution of product family configuration and supplier selection: a game-theoretic bilevel optimisation approach. Journal of Engineering Design 2018, 29, (4-5), 201-234.
2. Yang, D.; Li, J.; Wang, B.; Jia, Y.-j., Module-Based Product Configuration Decisions Considering Both Economical and Carbon Emission-Related Environmental Factors. Sustainability 2020, 12, (3), 1145: 1-13.
3. Liu, Z.; Zhang, M.; Li, Y.; Chu, X., Research on the module configuration of complex products considering the evolution of the product family. Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems 2020, 39, (3), 4577-4595.
4. Kim, S.; Moon, S. K., Sustainable product family configuration based on a platform strategy. Journal of Engineering Design 2017, 28, (10-12), 731-764.
5. Liu, D. Z.; Li, Z. K., Joint decision-making of product family configuration and order allocation by coordinating suppliers under disruption risks. Journal of Engineering Design 2021, 32, (5), 213-246.

Q6. Line 548: Correct the numbering. It is 6 and not 5.

A: As suggested by reviewers, we changed the numbering of section 6.

Q7. The conclusions’ section needs elaboration. More specifically, it seems to me that you end up with a short summary of the study and you just declare the limitation of the study. Since you have available many results for analysis you should emphasize to the outcome of policy or to the direction of potential implications derived from the study.

A: As suggested by reviewers, we add policy recommendations to the conclusion, as follows: ‘Consequently, an important suggestion from the above is that in the context of carbon neutrality, government needs to not only encourage enterprises to reduce carbon emissions, but also focus on carbon neutral expenditures. In order to achieve a win-win situation between the government and enterprises, enterprises are required to choose the best supplier in the product configuration process.’

 

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

I feel that you applied little effort in the direction to address the detected issues. I will insist on the comments 1 (about introduction section) and 7 (about conclusion section). Regarding comment 5, I know most of the listed studies. However, as I mentioned in the relevant comment "This way of presentation of the results is very common and platitudinous in relevant studies". It was a recomendation to think, let's say, "out of the box".

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewers:

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers' comments concerning our manuscript entitled ‘A New Product Configuration Model for Low Product Cost and Carbon Neutral Expenditure’. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer's comments are as flowing:

Response to reviewer:

1. I feel that you applied little effort in the direction to address the detected issues. I will insist on the comments 1 (about introduction section) and 7 (about conclusion section). Regarding comment 5,I know most of the listed studies. However, as I mentioned in the relevant comment "This way of presentation of the results is very common and platitudinous in relevant studies". It was a recomendation to think, let's say, "out of the box".

Comment 1. Introduction: No clear motivation for the paper has been stated. You should focus on this aspect. You should explicitly declare which is the motivation to conduct the present study and additionally to “build” the conceptual framework of the study on this motivation.

Comment 7. The conclusions’ section needs elaboration. More specifically, it seems to me that you end up with a short summary of the study and you just declare the limitation of the study. Since you have available many results for analysis you should emphasize to the outcome of policy or to the direction of potential implications derived from the study.

 

A: Thank you for your comments. Firstly, we declare that we maintain a neutral attitude towards government policies and regulations in this study. So instead of talking about carbon taxes, carbon caps, carbon trading prices, etc., we assume that the cost of CO₂ removal is borne by the government. The purpose of this study is to guide enterprises how to reduce the expenditure of CO₂ removal on the basis of cost control in the context of carbon neutrality. It is a new attempt to introduce the carbon neutral cost into the product configuration model.

Secondly, as suggested by reviewer, we add the study content in the third paragraph of the Introduction and summarize the contribution of our study as follows: ‘Toward this end, a carbon neutral cost model needs to be constructed to reveal the impact of supplier selection on reducing carbon neutral expenditure. In this study, we mainly focused on product configuration problem for carbon removal cost. Our contributions are as follows. Firstly, the concept of carbon neutral cost is proposed based on carbon dioxide removal technology and previous carbon emission studies. Secondly, the influence of carbon neutral cost on product configuration result and product cost is analyzed, and it provides suggestions for decision makers to develop new green products.’

Finally, as suggested by reviewer, we rewrite the second paragraph of the conclusion as follows: ‘The motorcycle case study demonstrates the reasonableness and superiority of the proposed approach. Compared with the optimization object of carbon emission, PC-CNC model has similar ability to reduce carbon emission. It assists decision makers reduce carbon emissions and develop green products at an early stages of product design. In addition, the PC-CNC model provides a quantitative method to es-timate the carbon neutral cost of products. Reducing carbon neutral cost not only re-duce the financial expenditure for governments, but also reduce the potential carbon tax penalty for enterprises. Consequently, to achieve a win-win situation between the government and enterprises, enterprises are required to choose the best supplier in the product configuration process.’

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

To my knowledge, all the detected issues have been addressed successfully.