Strategic design for inventory and production planning in closed-loop hybrid systems

This research studies inventory and production planning in a closed-loop system while considering both manufacturing and remanufacturing. We studied five inventory and production planning models under the continuous and periodic review systems using a discrete event simulation. Under the above review policies, different demand and return rates, as well as manufacturing and remanufacturing lead times, are considered. The total recoverable and serviceable inventory costs and production order variance are considered as the main performance indicators. From the total inventory cost viewpoint, our findings reveal the trade-off between stochastic demand, stochastic lead times, and review periods. It was found that the periodic review system outperforms the continuous review system for higher values of the review period and return to demand rate ratio. Furthermore, remanufacturing demonstrates an appreciable contribution to low order variance in periodic review systems for high values of return to demand ratio and lead times.