Abstract
This paper deals with the production-dependent failure rates for a hybrid manufacturing/remanufacturing system subject to random failures and repairs. The failure rate of the manufacturing machine depends on its production rate, while the failure rate of the remanufacturing machine is constant. In the proposed model, the manufacturing machine is characterized by a higher production rate. The machines produce one type of final product and unmet demand is backlogged. At the expected end of their usage, products are collected from the market and kept in recoverable inventory for future remanufacturing, or disposed of. The objective of the system is to find the production rates of the manufacturing and the remanufacturing machines that would minimize a discounted overall cost consisting of serviceable inventory cost, backlog cost and holding cost for returns. A computational algorithm, based on numerical methods, is used for solving the optimality conditions obtained from the application of the stochastic dynamic programming approach. Finally, a numerical example and sensitivity analyses are presented to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed approach. Our results clearly show that the optimal control policy of the system is obtained when the failure rates of the machine depend on its production rate.
Highlights
With market globalization and technological advancement, manufacturing systems are faced with optimization problems in their global supply chain of production
Some of the concepts of reverse logistics, such as the facility location models including return flows, inventory management models, production and transportation planning models, have been put into practice for years, it is only fairly recently that the integration of aspects related to the stochastic dynamics of machines has been a real concern for the management of reverse logistics systems
The failure rates of the manufacturing machine depend on its production rate
Summary
With market globalization and technological advancement, manufacturing systems are faced with optimization problems in their global supply chain of production. Production planning problems become more complex when the environmental constraints require optimization of production and reuse of parts returned by customers after use (reverse logistics). Hybrid manufacturing/remanufacturing systems are often subject to random events such as failures of the productions resources. The stochastic nature of the system is attributable to machines that are subject to a non-homogeneous Markov process resulting from the dependence of failure rates on the production rate. The main contribution of this paper is the joint control of manufacturing and remanufacturing policies with production-dependent failure rates. A numerical example and sensitivity analyses are presented to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed approach.
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