A Concurrence Optimization Model for Low-Carbon Product Family Design and the Procurement Plan of Components under Uncertainty

Abstract

With the increase in pollution and people’s awareness of the environment, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from products has attracted more and more attention. Companies and researchers are seeking appropriate methods to reduce the GHG emissions of products. Currently, product family design is widely used for meeting the diverse needs of customers. In order to reduce the GHG emission of products, some methods for low-carbon product family design have been presented in recent years. However, in the existing research, the related GHG emission data of a product family are given as crisp values, which cannot assess GHG emissions accurately. In addition, the procurement planning of components has not been fully concerned, and the supplier selection has only been considered. To this end, in this study, a concurrence optimization model was developed for the low-carbon product family design and the procurement plan of components under uncertainty. In the model, the relevant GHG emissions were considered as the uncertain number rather than the crisp value, and the uncertain GHG emissions model of the product family was established. Meanwhile, the order allocation of the supplier was considered as the decision variable in the model. To solve the uncertain optimization problem, a genetic algorithm was developed. Finally, a case study was performed to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The results showed that the proposed model can help decision-makers to simultaneously determine the configuration of product variants, the procurement strategy of components, and the price strategies of product variants based on the objective of maximizing profit and minimizing GHG emission under uncertainty. Moreover, the concurrent optimization of low-carbon product family design and order allocation can bring the company greater profit and lower GHG emissions than just considering supplier selection in low-carbon product family design.

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