A Deterministic Inventory Model of Aluminium Refreshment Cans in Reverse supply Chain

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present an original model for the production-recycling-reuse of aluminium refreshment cans. It is assumed that 250 ml aluminium cans are collected from the market. The cans are then sorted into non-tainted and tainted categories. The non-tainted aluminium cans are either reproduced or utilised as re-machining blended with primary (virgin) aluminium metal for creation of new cans to fulfil demand. The tainted cans are either sent to vendor utilising poor quality aluminium or discarded in a scrap yard. Numerical studies are used to illustrate the behaviour of the model, with an emphasis on exploring the reduction of total inventory cost of system and the amount of cans going into a scrap yard. Numerical analysis conducted on the model found that the amount of cans collected had the largest influence on the outcome of the total system unit time cost.