Analysis of the Supply Chain Disruption Risks in the Malaysian Automotive Remanufacturing Industry- a Case Study

Remanufacturing has now become one of the effective strategies for reducing the negative impact on the environment by prolonging the products’ life cycle in the automotive sector. Still considered as a relatively new industry in Malaysia, the low remanufacturing rate coupled with the lack of standardization are thus seen as causing a high inclination of disruption occurrences in the remanufacturing operations. As such, this paper had identified and investigated the existing disruptions in four problematic areas, namely the production planning, infrastructure facilities, distribution networking and inventory management of the automotive remanufacturing firms in Malaysia. From the SPSS analysis and calculation of the mean and standard deviation values on the semi-structured interviews that were conducted in three remanufacturing companies, the highest contributor to the disruption risks was found to have resulted from the difficulty in obtaining the spare parts components in the production planning process. By also exploring the awareness level on environmental sustainability and the significance of remanufacturing processes among the remanufacturer companies, this analysis is thus deemed useful for not only identifying suitable actions that can be taken for mitigating the various risks faced by the automotive remanufacturers in Malaysia, but also in solving the disruptions of the remanufacturing supply chain system

Use of the AHP Method to Evaluate Key Inventory Control Indicators: Case Study of a Taiwanese Manufacturer in China

Control of inventory is a crucial management task that can affect a company\u27s success and survival, and good inventory control offers many benefits. In this paper, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method is used to investigate key inventory indicators at a manufacturer and obtained an initial set of factors influencing inventory control, including five major assessment dimensions and 15 assessment criteria. "Rolling customer demand forecast accuracy" was a key assessment dimension that can be used to evaluate the case company\u27s inventory. The five most important key inventory control indicators consisted of "forecasting accuracy," "purchases in China," "production, sale, and inventory (PSI) meeting," "skilled worker turnover rate," and "major changes in market demand." In addition, these key indicators are discussed and some practical recommendations are made

Driving vehicle dismantling forward - A combined literature and empirical study

To move towards a more sustainable and circular economy, a more efficient recovery processes for end-of-life vehicles and their constituent components and materials is needed. To enable reuse, remanufacturing, high-value recycling and other circular strategies, a well-functioning disassembly is essential. This article presents a literature review of studies focusing on vehicle dismantling and surrounding end-of-life treatment systems. Furthermore, topics considered as the most critical for practitioners were identified through focus groups composed of industry representatives and researchers from various Swedish organizations. By comparing findings from the literature and empirical results, it is concluded that there are differences and gaps between the areas researched and those considered as important by industry, thus calling for further research to address practical challenges in improving vehicle end-of-life management. The four areas highlighted as the most prominent are: i) plastics, ii) batteries, iii) investments and ownership structures, and iv) the workforce

Assessment of Malaysia manufacturing water use by using score rating system of aggregated indicators

Increase in water demand is unavoidable due to the population growth, industrialization, urbanization and change of lifestyle. Aspires to become an industrialized nation, Malaysia has set profound transformation putting the manufacturing sector to spearhead the change and become one of the biggest contributors to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Growth of manufacturing sector in Malaysia creates increase of water demand that needs attention for performance evaluation towards sustainability. Many assessment methods have been proposed globally in response to these challenges. Evaluation and optimization of manufacturing water use had been done in economic, environmental, social and technical aspects respectively. Nonetheless, approaches to assess manufacturing water use in an integrated aspect has yet to be conducted. Thus, this research aims to develop a novel composite index to evaluate the performance of manufacturing water demand in a holistic manner. The composite index is called Malaysia Manufacturing Industry Water Benchmarking System (MIWABS) that was developed based on relevant sets of indicators under relevant aspects in sustainability principles and was mapped out with Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs). Selection and establishment of indicators were carried out based on specified filtration criteria through water stakeholder workshop. On the other hand, weightage of aspects was done based on Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method based on water experts’ feedback. As a result, a total of nine indicators under four aspects; economic, environmental, social and technical were created. The indicators that were established under MIWABS framework are E1 (percentage of water in production), E2 (cost to treat wastewater), En1 (percentage of recycle water), En2 (wastewater per product), En3 (water per product), S1 (employee water use), S2 (water conservation effort), T1 (percentage of utility water) and T2 (percentage of process water). Based on the AHP feedback through the collective decision made by water experts in Malaysia, it was found that economic indicators had the weight value of 29.6%, while environmental indicators had the weight value of 38.6%. On the other hand, social indicators had the weight value of 16.2% and technical indicators had the weight value of 15.6%. Rubber glove and semiconductor industries were chosen as the case study to validate and demonstrate the MIWABS framework. Selection of these industry subsectors were made based on statistical data from Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) which was indicated as water-intensive industry. From the MIWABS scores, the profiling of these two industries has been presented. The outcomes of MIWABS show potential strategic improvements for Malaysia manufacturing water use. Due to the increase in water demand, encouragement for water recycling shall be introduced. Additionally, the findings also showed that, manufacturing shall opted for alternative water resources such as groundwater and river to minimize water intake competition between other sectors. Improvement of manufacturing water use is important to support this sector so that it can be boosted as an important industry such as rubber glove which had proven to be in stable and vital demand for the world even during economy downfall due to the global pandemic COVID-19. Efficiency of manufacturing sector aligning with National Policy Industry 4.0 shall be taken into account since water is an integral component for the betterment of Malaysia as one of the industrialized countries