Product redesign decisions for remanufactured products in a recoverable manufacturing system

Due to an increase of the used product disposal and treatment, the end of life (EOL) management has drawn significant attention by manufacturers. One of the primary concerns is the feasibility for product remanufacturing, which is to meet the stringent requirements of extended producer responsibility (EPR). In order to increase used manufactured products and component utilisation, product remanufacturing is currently considered as one of the compromising approaches towards efficient and effective post-use life management. However, manufacturers have to understand and determine optimal recovery plan for achieving maximised recovery value for a remanufactured product in order to gain significant financial and environmental sustainability. This article presents a mathematical model to examine two types of the proposed recovery configuration selections to make the comparisons of their possible recovery utilisation value of a remanufactured product. In this study, an optimization model is developed and solved using binary programming. The results obtained for numerical application in product redesign plan showed that the proposed Type-TI remanufactured product with base parts to be remanufactured is practically more desirable than the Type-I remanufactured product with base part to be de-manufactured via recycling.