ABSTRACT

This chapter examines levels of buffering and production capacity decisions to cope with uncertainties through the various stages of a remanufacturing system. It considers a hybrid system in which manufacturing and remanufacturing operations are occurring together with single item remanufacturable returns and stochastic demand. In a hybrid system, it is critical that remanufacturing and disposal decisions for the returned products satisfy non-stationary demand. The chapter presents the numerical analysis and results for the system through the life cycle stages of the remanufacturable item. It provides the expansion methodology in brief to obtain the analytical results for the remanufacturing system and derive the system performance measures. The chapter analyzes the hybrid system and investigates the effect of buffer size on dealing with the typical uncertainties of a remanufacturing system through the various life cycle stages of the recoverable product. The remanufacturing shop performs different recovery procedures according to the varying condition of the returned used items.