Production rate control for stochastic remanufacturing systems

We consider the control of a manufacturing system executing single-product remanufacturing operations in a close-loop system. In this paper, the remanufacturing resources respond to planned demand executed at the end of the expected life of each individual equipment and unplanned demand triggered by a major equipment failure. Remanufacturing operations for planned demands can be executed at different rates, which referred to different component replacement and repair strategies. The system objective is to define the remanufacturing rate as a function of the serviceable equipment inventory level that minimizes the repair and inventory/shortage cost over an infinite horizon. The proposed policy, called multiple hedging point policy (MHPP), is described by two thresholds related to two accelerated repair rates. To determine the parameters of the control policy, and hence, to achieve a close approximation of the optimal repair policy, an experimental approach based on design of experiment, simulation modeling and response surface methodology is used. Our results show that the optimal cost incurred under the developed control policy is lower than that incurred under the classical hedging point policy (HPP).