Inventory strategies for systems with fast remanufacturing

We describe hybrid manufacturing/remanufacturing systems with a longlead time for manufacturing and a short lead time for remanufacturing.We review the classes of inventory strategies for hybrid systems inthe literature. These are all based on equal lead times. For systemswith slow manufacturing and fast remanufacturing, we propose a newclass. An extensive numerical experiment shows that the optimalstrategy in the new class almost always performs better and often muchbetter than the optimal strategies in all other classes.logistics;remanufacturing;stochastic inventory control

Inventory strategies for systems with fast remanufacturing

We describe hybrid manufacturing/remanufacturing systems with a long lead time for manufacturing and a short lead time for remanufacturing. We review the classes of inventory strategies for hybrid systems in the literature. These are all based on equal lead times. For systems with slow manufacturing and fast remanufacturing, we propose a new class. An extensive numerical experiment shows that the optimal strategy in the new class almost always performs better and often much better than the optimal strategies in all other classes

Building Resilience in Closed-Loop Supply Chains through Information-Sharing Mechanisms

In this paper we reflect on the role of information sharing on increasing the resilience of supply chains. Specifically, we highlight the lack of studies addressing this relevant topic in closed-loop supply chains. Then, we introduce the works covered by the Special Issue “Information Sharing on Sustainable and Resilient Supply Chains” to investigate the relationships between information sharing and resilience in sustainable supply chains.Universidad de Sevilla V PPIT-USDICAR-UniCT (Dpto. Ing. Civil y Arqu. Univ. Catania) Plan de investigación Departamental 2016-201

Simple heuristics for push and pull remanufacturing policies

Inventory policies for joint remanufacturing and manufacturing have recently received much attention. Most efforts, though, were related to (optimal) policy structures and numerical optimization, rather than closed form expressions for calculating near optimal policy parameters. The focus of this paper is on the latter. We analyze an inventory system with unit product returns and demands where remanufacturing is the cheaper alternative for manufacturing. Manufacturing is also needed, however, since there are less returns than demands. The cost structure consists of setup costs, holding costs, and backorder costs. Manufacturing and remanufacturing orders have non-zero lead times. To control the system we use certain extensions of the familiar (s,Q) policy, called push and pull remanufacturing policies. For all policies we present simple, closed form formulae for approximating the optimal policy parameters under a cost minimization objective. In an extensive numerical study we show that the proposed formulae lead to near-optimal policy parameters.inventory control;remanufacturing;heuristics

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

Periodic Review, Push Inventory Policies for Remanufacturing

Sustainability has become a major issue in most economies, causing many leading companies to focus on product recovery and reverse logistics. This research is focused on product recovery, and in particular on production control and inventory management in the remanufacturing context. We study a remanufacturing facility that receives a stream of returned products according to a Poisson process. Demand is uncertain and also follows a Poisson process. The decision problems for the remanufacturing facility are when to release returned products to the remanufacturing line and how many new products to manufacture. We assume that remanufactured products are as good as new. In this paper, we employ a "push" policy that combines these two decisions. It is well known that the optimal policy parameters are difficult to find analytically; therefore, we develop several heuristics based on traditional inventory models. We also investigate the performance of the system as a function of return rates, backorder costs and manufacturing and remanufacturing lead times; and we develop approximate lower and upper bounds on the optimal solution. We illustrate and explain some counter-intuitive results and we test the performance of the heuristics on a set of sample problems. We find that the average error of the heuristics is quite low.inventory;reverse logistics;remanufacturing;environment;heuristics

Integrating Closed-loop Supply Chains and Spare Parts Management at IBM

Ever more companies are recognizing the benefits of closed-loop supplychains that integrate product returns into business operations. IBMhas been among the pioneers seeking to unlock the value dormant inthese resources. We report on a project exploiting product returns asa source of spare parts. Key decisions include the choice of recoveryopportunities to use, the channel design, and the coordination ofalternative supply sources. We developed an analytic inventory controlmodel and a simulation model to address these issues. Our results showthat procurement cost savings largely outweigh reverse logistics costsand that information management is key to an efficient solution. Ourrecommendations provide a basis for significantly expanding the usageof the novel parts supply source, which allows for cutting procurementcosts.supply chain management;reverse logistics;product recovery;inventory management;service management

Reverse logistics - a framework

In this paper we define and compare Reverse Logistics definitions. We start by giving an understanding framework of Reverse Logistics: the why-what-how. By this means, we put in context the driving forces for Reverse Logistics, a typology of return reasons, a classification of products, processes and actors. In addition we provide a decision framework for Reverse Logistics and we present it according to long, medium and short term decisions, i.e. strategic-tactic-operational decisions.Framework;Decision-making;Reverse logistics;Theory building

Product remanufacturing and disposal: A numerical comparison of alternative control strategies

In this paper we consider a single-product, single-echelon production and inventory system with product returns, product remanufacturing, and product disposal. For this system we consider three different procurement and inventor

On the alignment of lot sizing decisions in a remanufacturing system in the presence of random yield

In the area of reverse logistics, remanufacturing has been proven to be a valu- able option for product recovery. In many industries, each step of the products’ recovery is carried out in lot sizes which leads to the assumption that for each of the different recovery steps some kind of fixed costs prevail. Furthermore, holding costs can be observed for all recovery states of the returned product. Although several authors study how the different lot sizes in a remanufacturing system shall be determined, they do not consider the specificity of the remanufacturing process itself. Thus, the disassembly operations which are always neglected in former analyses are included in this contribution as a specific recovery step. In addition, the assumption of deterministic yields (number of reworkable compo- nents obtained by disassembly) is extended in this work to study the system behavior in a stochastic environment. Three different heuristic approaches are presented for this environment that differ in their degree of sophistication. The least sophisticated method ignores yield randomness and uses the expected yield fraction as certainty equivalent. As a numerical experiment shows, this method already yields fairly good results in most of the investigated problem instances in comparison to the other heuristics which incorporate yield uncertainties. How- ever, there exist instances for which the performance loss between the least and the most sophisticated heuristic amounts to more than 6%.reverse logistics, remanufacturing, lot sizing, disassembly, random yield