Joint hybrid repair and remanufacturing systems and supply control

The control of a stochastic manufacturing system that executes capital asset repairs and remanufacturing in an integrated system is examined. The remanufacturing resources respond to planned returns of worn-out equipment at the end of their expected life and unplanned returns triggered by major equipment failures. Remanufacturing operations for planned demand can be executed at different rates and costs corresponding to different replacement and repair modes. The replacement components inventory is provided by an upstream supply with random lead times. The objective is to determine a control policy for both the supply and remanufacturing activities that minimises the average repair/replacement, acquisition and inventory/shortage total cost over an infinite horizon. We propose a suboptimal joint remanufacturing and supply control policy, composed of a multi-hedging point policy (MHPP) for the remanufacturing stage and an (s, Q) policy for the replacement parts supply. The MHPP is based on two inventory thresholds that trigger the use of predefined remanufacturing modes. Control policy parameters are obtained combining analytical modelling, simulation experiments and response surface methodology. The effects of the distribution, mean and variability of the lead time are tested and a sensitivity analysis of cost parameters is conducted to validate the proposed control policy. We also show that our policy leads to a significant cost reduction as compared to a combination of a hedging point policy (HPP) and an (s, Q) policy.