Planning Demand- and Legislation-Driven Remanufacturing for a Product Family: A Model for Maximizing Economic and Environmental Potential

Remanufacturing used, end-of-life products is a complex problem involving multiple types of products that may share common parts. Recovery targets assigned by market demand and environmental legislation add more difficulty to the problem. Manufacturers now need to achieve specified take-back and recovery rates while fulfilling demands for remanufactured products. To assists in the demand-and legislation-driven remanufacturing of a family of products (i.e., multiple products that share common parts), this paper introduces a bi-objective mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model for optimizing remanufacturing. The model identifies optimal remanufacturing plans for a product family, whereby, the remanufacturer can achieve demand and recovery targets more profitably and in an environmentally-friendly manner. The model can also be used to quantify and justify the economic and environmental benefits of a product family from a remanufacturing perspective. A case study is presented for remanufacturing an alternator-family of products.