Scheduling policies for remanufacturing

Recoverable product environments are part of strategies to increase product life and prevention of waste through repair, remanufacturing and recycling of products. A key part of this type of environment is the recoverable manufacturing system designed to extend product life through repair and remanufacturing. Remanufacturing systems are faced with a greater degree of uncertainty and complexity than traditional new manufacturing system, leading to the need for planning and control systems designed to deal with the added uncertainty and complexity. In this study of a remanufacturing facility, two key activities in planning and controlling, disassembly release mechanisms and priority dispatching rules, are examined via a simulation model. The results indicate that simple due-date-based priority dispatching procedures generally perform well for a variety of performance measures. Disassembly release mechanisms, as examined in this study, had very little impact and as a result practicing managers should favor the simplest to implement and manage mechanisms.