Design for lifecycle profit with a simultaneous consideration of initial manufacturing and end-of-life remanufacturing

Abstract

Remanufacturing is emerging as a promising solution for achieving green, profitable businesses. This paper considers a manufacturer that produces new products and also remanufactures products that become available at the end of their lifecycle. For such a manufacturer, design decisions determine both the initial profit from manufacturing and future profit from remanufacturing. To maximize the total profit, design decisions must carefully consider both manufacturing and end-of-life stages together. To help in the lifecycle design, this paper proposes a mathematical model using mixed integer programming. With an aim to maximize the total lifecycle profit (i.e., the sum of the profits from initial manufacturing and end-of-life remanufacturing), the proposed model identifies an optimal product design (i.e., design specifications and the selling price) for the new and remanufactured products. It optimizes both the initial design and design upgrades at the end-of-life stage and also provides corresponding production strategies. To illustrate, the developed model is demonstrated with an example of a desktop computer.