Optimal Policy for a Multiechelon Inventory System with Remanufacturing

Gregory A. DeCroix

121 citations0/0 files storedOperations Research

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Supply Chain and Inventory Management Sustainable Supply Chain Management Logistics and Transportation Systems

Abstract

We analyze a multiechelon inventory system with inventory stages arranged in series. In addition to traditional forward material flows, used products are returned to a recovery facility, where they can be stored, disposed, or remanufactured and shipped to one of the stages to re-enter the forward flow of material. This system combines the key elements of two simpler systems: the series system studied by Clark and Scarf (1960) and the single-stage remanufacturing systems studied by Simpson (1978) and Inderfurth (1997). We focus on identifying the structure of the optimal remanufacturing/ordering/disposal policy for such a system. In particular, we investigate whether the optimal policy inherits the basic structural properties of the simpler systems. We show that if remanufactured items flow into the most upstream stage, then this is the case. Specifically, the system can be solved by decomposition into a sequence of single-stage systems, with each downstream stage following an echelon base-stock policy and the most upstream stage following a three-parameter policy with a simple (and intuitive) structure. We show that similar results hold when remanufactured products flow into a downstream stage; however, in this case some modifications must be made. In particular, the definition of echelon inventory must be adjusted for stages upstream of the remanufacturing stage, and disposal of used items can no longer be allowed. We also compare the information required for managing this system to that required in the Clark and Scarf or Inderfurth settings, and we point out how the requirements are somewhat different depending on whether remanufacturing occurs upstream or downstream.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 121 citations exist upstream.

References

1997Quantitative models for reverse logistics: A review 2000Foundations of Inventory Management 1960Optimal Policies for a Multi-Echelon Inventory Problem 2004Optimal Policies for a Multi-Echelon Inventory Problem 2005The Optimality of (S,s) Policies in the Dynamic Inventory Problem 2004Reverse logistics : quantitative models for closed-loop supply chains 2001Quantitative Models for Reverse Logistics 1963Mathematical Models in the Social Sciences

Cited by

2011Designing a reverse logistics network for optimal collection, recovery and quality-based product-mix planning 2011Production planning and control for remanufacturing: literature review and analysis 2019Impact of product-design strategies on the operations of a closed-loop supply chain 2009Multiperiod Remanufacturing Planning With Uncertain Quality of Inputs 2014Bricks vs. clicks: Which is better for marketing remanufactured products?2015Core (product) Acquisition Management for remanufacturing: a review

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.