The boomerang returns? Accounting for the impact of uncertainties on the dynamics of remanufacturing systems

Recent years have witnessed companies abandon traditional open-loop supply chain structures in favour of closed-loop variants, in a bid to mitigate environmental impacts and exploit economic opportunities. Central to the closed-loop paradigm is remanufacturing: the restoration of used products to useful life. While this operational model has huge potential to extend product life-cycles, the collection and recovery processes diminish the effectiveness of existing control mechanisms for open-loop systems. We systematically review the literature in the field of closed-loop supply chain dynamics, which explores the time-varying interactions of material and information flows in the different elements of remanufacturing supply chains. We supplement this with further reviews of what we call the three ‘pillars’ of such systems, i.e. forecasting, collection, and inventory and production control. This provides us with an interdisciplinary lens to investigate how a ‘boomerang’ effect (i.e. sale, consumption, and return processes) impacts on the behaviour of the closed-loop system and to understand how it can be controlled. To facilitate this, we contrast closed-loop supply chain dynamics research to the well-developed research in each pillar; explore how different disciplines have accommodated the supply, process, demand, and control uncertainties; and provide insights for future research on the dynamics of remanufacturing systems

Remanufacturing and product design: designing for the 7th generation

The following is taken directly from the research report. This report investigates Design for Remanufacture in terms of both detailed product design and the business context in which Design for Remanufacture may operate. Key Study Objectives • To understand the link between design and remanufacture • To understand how Design for Remanufacture can lead to increased innovation and Sustainable Development (SD) • To identify proactive strategies to further Design for Remanufactur

A Conceptual Framework of Reverse Logistics Impact on Firm Performance

This study aims to examine the reverse logistics factors that impact upon firm performance. We review reverse logistics factors under three research streams: (a) resource-based view of the firm, including: Firm strategy, Operations management, and Customer loyalty (b) relational theory, including: Supply chain efficiency, Supply chain collaboration, and institutional theory, including: Government support and Cultural alignment. We measured firm performance with 5 measures: profitability, cost, innovativeness, perceived competitive advantage, and perceived customer satisfaction. We discuss implications for research, policy and practice

Overview and classification of coordination contracts within forward and reverse supply chains

Among coordination mechanisms, contracts are valuable tools used in both theory and practice to coordinate various supply chains. The focus of this paper is to present an overview of contracts and a classification of coordination contracts and contracting literature in the form of classification schemes. The two criteria used for contract classification, as resulted from contracting literature, are transfer payment contractual incentives and inventory risk sharing. The overview classification of the existing literature has as criteria the level of detail used in designing the coordination models with applicability on the forward and reverse supply chains.Coordination contracts; forward supply chain; reverse supply chain

A review of the state of the art in tools and techniques used to evaluate remanufacturing feasibility

Remanufacturing often seems a sensible approach for companies looking to adopt sustainable business plans to achieve long term success. However, remanufacturing must not be treated as a panacea for achieving a sustainable business, as issues such as market demand, product design, end of life condition and information uncertainty can affect the success of a remanufacturing endeavour. Businesses therefore need to carefully assess the feasibility of adopting remanufacturing before committing to a particular activity or strategy. To aid this decision process, a number of tools and techniques have been published by academics. However, there is currently not a formal review and comparison of these tools and how they relate to the decision process. The main research objective of this study has therefore been to identify tools and methods which have been developed within academia to support the decision process of assessing and evaluating the viability of conducting remanufacturing, and evaluate how they have met the requirements of the decision stage. This has been achieved by conducting a content analysis. Three bibliographic databases were searched (Compendex, Web of Science and Scopus) using a structured keyword search to identify relevant literature. The identified tools were then split into 6 categories based upon the specific decision stages and applications, then evaluated against a set of key criteria which are, the decision factors (economic, environmental, social) and the inclusion of uncertainty. The key finding of this study has been that although decision factors are generally well covered, operational tools and the use of uncertainty are often neglected

Creating a global vision for sustainable fashion

Textiles, the fastest growing sector in household waste, have created an exponential rise in the export of second hand clothes (SHC) to overseas markets such as Kenya and Tanzania. Despite the few advantages for the destination markets (eg, enterprise opportunities), this has exasperated a difficult situation for domestic production. Increased cheap imports from Asia have also led to decline in SHC markets, resulting in increased land filling and the associated environmental impacts. Our research proposes remanufacturing fashion from the unwanted SHC, embellishing using local (destination market) craft/design. From literature review conducted, reuse and remanufacture of clothing causes the least impact on energy use and appears to be the most environmentally and socially friendly approach to sustainability efforts. Remanufacture of clothing is currently practiced at niche market levels, for it to have a broader impact; it needs to gain entry into the mass-market retail arena. In the mass market arena, the apparel value chain is organized around several parts with a marketing network at the retail level. Lead firms predominantly construct these value chains, are predominantly located in developed countries, and may be large retailers and brand-name firms, playing a significant role in specifying what is to be produced, how, and by whom. Our goal is to understand how designers, manufacturers and retailers may work together in a remanufacturing process. We present findings from interviews with Tanzanian second hand clothes retailers and artisans, UK fashion remanufacturers and retailers. We discuss the implications on the fashion design process and propose a new product development method for sustainable consumption of fashion. We conclude by reflecting on potential mechanisms of the supply chain integration and how the large multinationals may become engaged. Key words: remanufacturing, design process, supply chain, second hand clothe

Production planning and control of closed-loop supply chains

More and more supply chains emerge that include a return flow of materials. Many original equipment manufacturers are nowadays engaged in the remanufacturing business. In many process industries, production defectives and by-products are reworked. These closed-loop supply chains deserve special attention. Production planning and control in such hybrid systems is a real challenge, especially due to increased uncertainties. Even companies that are engaged in remanufacturing operations only, face more complicated planning situations than traditional manufacturing companies.We point out the main complicating characteristics in closed-loop systems with both remanufacturing and rework, and indicated the need for new or modified/extended production planning and control approaches. An overview of the existing scientific contributions is given. It appears that we only stand at the beginning of this line of research, and that many more contributions are needed and expected in the future.closed-loop supply chains;Production planning and control

Decision support for assessing the feasibility of a product for remanufacture

Remanufacturing is the process of restoring old, damaged and failed products to a condition as good as new . Whilst the practice of remanufacture has been conducted for almost a century, the attention it receives within mainstream business is increasing due to potential benefits associated with economic savings and reduced environmental impact. There are several challenges in operating a successful remanufacturing business, one of which is how to assess the feasibility of remanufacturing. Remanufacturing does not lend itself towards every product due to factors related to the product, process, market and business capabilities, therefore careful assessment should be conducted before taking on a remanufacturing endeavour. This thesis reports the research undertaken to aid decision makers assessing the feasibility of a product for remanufacture. The aim has therefore been to determine the requirements of assessing remanufacturing feasibility, then to develop a tool to support this activity. Requirements of the decision making process were established through a detailed review of the literature supplemented with additional interviews from remanufacturing businesses, whilst research gaps for support tools were identified through a systematic review of existing tools presented within academia. Through these reviews it was determined that current methods do not provide enough support in determining the impact of uncertainties found within remanufacturing against key assessment criteria, such as economic cost. Focus upon the tool development was therefore directed at estimating remanufacturing cost of a product under uncertain conditions. The tool was designed, utilising techniques such as Monte Carlo analysis, fuzzy sets and case based reasoning. A prototype of the tool was then implemented within an object oriented structure and deployed as web service. Testing and validation were conducted by demonstrating the functionality of the tool against a set of specification requirements, through two contrasting remanufacturing case studies identified within industry. In summary this research has developed a tool to support the assessment of remanufacturing viability through cost estimation under uncertain conditions, identifying requirements through a detailed literature review and interviews with industry and providing validation through two detailed case studies. The tool is novel in its ability to calculate both cost and the risk associated with the uncertainties present within the remanufacturing domain

Modular Product Architecture’s Decisions Support For Remanufacturing-Product Service System Synergy

Remanufacturing is identified as the most viable product end-of-life (EOL) management strategy. However, about 80% of manufactured products currently end up as wastes. Besides other benefits, the product service system (PSS) could curtail the main bottlenecks to remanufacturing namely quantity, quality, recovery time of used product, and negative perception of remanufactured products. Therefore, the integration of PSS and remanufacturing has been increasingly recommended as an enhanced product offering. However, an integration that is informed by mathematical analysis is missing. Meanwhile, the variables that bolster the performance of PSS and remanufacturing are substantially influenced by product development (PD) decisions. Among the PD strategies, modular architecture is a technique that significantly enhances product lifecycle management. Consequently, modular design is a suitable PD approach for an enhanced PSS-remanufacturing enterprise. Furthermore, it is argued that the PSS-remanufacturing initiative is poised to be a sustainable venture due to the sustainability philosophy of PSS. However, the acclaimed sustainability of PSS is flawed if a high environmental impact is associated with the production of the parts that constitute the product which is offered in PSS. Therefore, it is essential to consider the environmental implications of the production of the parts that are contained in the product architecture during PD. This research identifies that cost, core-cleaning, and product serviceability are critical variables for the success of remanufacturing and PSS. The research employs pairwise assessment methodology to evaluate the compatibility of module pairs comprehensively and obtains the modular pair compatibility indices via fuzzy system. Similarly, cost data are obtained. The study develops an optimization model that determines viable modular configuration(s) from among several alternatives in order to realize an enhanced PSS-remanufacturing business. Furthermore, the research performs lifecycle assessment (LCA) of module variants and determine the modular architecture with minimal environmental Impact. Having obtained the optimal architectures with regard to cost, core cleaning, product serviceability and environmental impacts, multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT) is engaged to collectively assess the degree of sustainability of the product architectures. The study offers analytical-based guidance to the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in making product architecture decisions in order to realize the sustainable PSS-remanufacturing enterprise

Integration of mahalanobis-taguchi system and activity based costing in decision making for remanufacturing

Classifying components at the end of life (EOL) into remanufacture, repair or dispose is still a major concern to automotive industries. Prior to this study, no specific approach is reported as a guide line to determine critical crankpins that justifying economical remanufacturing process. Traditional cost accounting (TCA) has been used widely by remanufacturing industries but this is not a good measure of estimating the actual manufacturing costs per unit as compared to activity based costing (ABC). However, the application of ABC method in estimating remanufactured cost is rarely reported. These issues were handled separately without a proper integration to make remanufacturing decision which frequently results into uneconomical operating cost and finally the decision becomes less accurate. The aim of this work is to develop a suitable pattern recognition method for classifying crankshaft into three different EOL groups and subsequently evaluates the critical and non-critical crankpins of the used crankshaft using Mahalanobis-Taguchi System (MTS). A remanufacturability assessment technique was developed using Microsoft Excel spreadsheet on pattern recognition and critical crankpins evaluation, and finally integrates these information into a similar spreadsheet with ABC to make decision whether the crankshaft is to be remanufactured, repaired or disposed. The developed scatter diagram was able to recognize group pattern of EOL crankshaft which later was successfully used to determine critical crankpins required for remanufacturing process. The proposed method can serve as a useful approach to the remanufacturing industries for systematically evaluate and decide EOL components for further processing. Case study on six engine models, the result shows that three engines can be securely remanufactured at above 40% profit margin while another two engines are still viable to remanufacture but with less profit margin. In contrast, only two engines can be securely remanufactured due overcharge when using TCA. This inaccuracy affects significantly the overall remanufacturing activities and revenue of the industry. In conclusion, the proposed integration on pattern recognition, parameter evaluation and costing assists the decision making process to effectively remanufacture EOL automotive components as confirmed by Head of workshop of Motor Teknologi Industri Sdn. Bhd