Abstract
Product configuration is a key enabling technology for mass customization production. Previous studies mainly focus on the solving technologies for obtaining a feasible configuration or optimal configuration but ignore environmental factors like CO2 emissions, especially the environmental regulations from international organizations. In this article, we address product configuration optimization problems considering both carbon cap and carbon tax regulations. A two-stage approach that combines both Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and a greedy algorithm is presented to solve the product configuration problems with carbon emission concerns. A case study of a configurable ranger-drilling machine is illustrated to demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented approach. The impacts of carbon cap and carbon tax regulations on configuration results are compared. Further, the models are extended to analyze the effects of single-sourcing and multisourcing on product configuration. The analysis shows that multisourcing in combination with carbon tax regulation can facilitate a manufacturer to provide more green and low-carbon customized products for customers. Numerical experiments are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the model and the efficiency of the proposed solution method.
Highlights
With the fierce market competition, modern enterprises have been striving to improve their product design to meet the personalized needs of customers
In the case that numerous valid configurations exist for a configuration problem, some researchers apply optimization algorithms to find the optimal configuration in accordance with some objective such as minimal configuration cost. e algorithms contain mathematical programming [14] and metaheuristic methods [15,16,17], such as the Genetic Algorithm (GA)
The extra fuel pump module has two alternative instances: high-capacity pump (HP) and normal-capacity pump (NP). e rock driller module has three types of instances to be selected, i.e., HL500, HL600, and HL700, which differ in the size of drilled holes. e configuration rules restricting the possible combination of module instances are shown in Table 2. e manufacturer adopts the ATO paradigm, which means that all modules are purchased from suppliers and only assembly activities are performed by the manufacturer. e multisourcing strategy is employed in this case to avoid the risk of supply disruption; namely, the module instance can be purchased from multiple suppliers
Summary
With the fierce market competition, modern enterprises have been striving to improve their product design to meet the personalized needs of customers. To take the previous study further, in this article, we address the product configuration problem with multisourcing supplier selections under carbon regulations. On the other hand, combining the multisourcing strategy and the carbon tax regulation can help a manufacturer reduce its carbon emissions and offer a more green-friendly customized product for customers. 2. Literature Review is study is related to both product configuration problems and carbon emissions in productions and operations. Tang et al [26] addressed the product configuration problem with the objective of reducing carbon emissions They do not deal with the carbon emission regulations proposed by UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, among which carbon cap and carbon tax are two types of mainly applied regulations. The risk of the supply chain may be avoided by adopting the strategy
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