Production Planning for Product Recovery Management

Abstract

Production Planning and Control (PPC) in product recovery systems faces complications due to several characteristics which typically require tools different from, and in addition to, those known from traditional forward production and logistics systems (e.g., see Guide, 2000, and Inderfurth and Teunter, 2002). Many of these characteristics are due to additional specific operations necessary for disassembling, reprocessing, and rearranging recoverable products. Furthermore, in product recovery management, considerable sources of uncertainty have to be taken into consideration concerning the arrival of recoverables as well as the outcome of disassembly and reprocessing activities. The specific environment that poses challenges for PPC under product recovery will be demonstrated by two case examples, one of them concerning remanufacturing of used products in the field of discrete products’ manufacture, and the other considering rework of by-products in the field of process industries.