Abstract
Due to environmental legislation pressure and the competition between manufacturing firms, a high number of production firms are obliged to collect and remanufacture used products. As a result, firm leaders and academic researchers are devoted to developing and managing new sustainable supply chains. Most of the published works in the literature assume that new and remanufactured products are of the same quality, and that all of the returned-used products are remanufacturable. However, in practice, new products are perceived as being of higher quality than remanufactured ones, and the remanufacturing depends on the quality of the returned-used products. This paper aims to bridge this gap in the literature by providing an optimal design for a manufacturing/remanufacturing system that differentiates between new and remanufactured products and sorts the used products into three quality levels. The objective is to determine the optimal storage capacities and production decisions regarding new and remanufactured products while considering carbon emissions. A model is developed to consider the above issues and determine the total profit. An evolutionary algorithm is developed to find the optimal values regarding store capacities and the remanufacturing periods of new and remanufactured products that maximize the total profit. Numerical results are provided to study the impact of the quantity and quality of returned-used products on the optimal values of store capacities, the remanufacturing periods of new and remanufactured products, and carbon emissions.
Highlights
Due to legislation pressure, environmental regulations, and potential economic benefits, manufacturing firms are obliged to commit to the development of sustainable supply chains [1,2]
The considered issues are: remanufactured products are distinguishable from new ones, both machines are subject to random repairs and failures, demands for new products and remanufactured ones are stochastic, the quantity of returned-used products is proportional to the sales in the previous periods, returned-used products are sorted in three quality levels, and carbon emissions
To increase the total profit and decrease the carbon emissions, the firm leader needs to attract more customers to buy remanufactured products instead of new ones, at a low price compared to new ones
Summary
Environmental regulations, and potential economic benefits, manufacturing firms are obliged to commit to the development of sustainable supply chains [1,2]. The design and the management of sustainable supply chains has attracted the attention of firm leaders and academic researchers. Several firm leaders are working hard to propose the optimal design of the sustainable supply chain in order to respect the environment constraints and maximize profit. The study notes that firms should adopt policies that enhance customers’ perceptions of its sustainable systems and offer customers suitable opportunities to participate in the practice of sustainable supply chain management. Manufacturing/remanufacturing systems are very prominent in the sustainable supply chain literature, as they recover and remanufacture used products that will be reused by the customers. The rate and the quality of the returned-used products certainly have an impact on the design and management of manufacturing/remanufacturing systems
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