Integrated Planning for a Hybrid Manufacturing-Remanufacturing System: a Multi-Objective/Fuzzy-Satisfying Combined Approach

The present study addresses the issue of joint planning for a hybrid manufacturing-remanufacturing system. The latter includes a single, capacitated machine, which tends to fail randomly. When breakdowns occur, corrective maintenance is performed. Additionally, imperfect preventive maintenance is scheduled to reduce the risk of a failure rate. New products can be manufactured and returned products can be remanufactured in the system under consideration. Remanufacturing is thought to be more eco-friendly because it produces fewer carbon emissions. The objective is to develop an integrated plan that reduces overall economic costs and carbon emissions while increasing system availability. A multi-objective model is proposed and then solved by the weighted sum method. A fuzzy satisfying method is applied to evaluate the best trade-off solution among the Pareto optimal solutions. Extensive computational experiments are carried out to investigate the effects of carbon footprints generated from new and remanufactured products on integrated planning. Results show that remanufacturing helps reduce the need for new products, leading to significant resource savings and less waste.