Sandeep Mondal

Analysis of issues relating to remanufacturing technology - a case of an Indian company

Remanufacturing is an attractive business option involving the process of value recovery and reuse of used products. Even though it has been accepted by the Western world, India is yet to take it up as an organised industrial sector. An attempt is made to study the various techno-managerial activities of an Indian photocopier remanufacturer. This paper includes critical examination of relevant issues in managing the remanufacturing process with the help of Interpretive Structural Model (ISM) methodology and discussion on the case study subsequently leads to some meaningful conclusions. It is found that the key drivers for this remanufacturing business are the issues relating to users environment (source of returns) and marketing of remanufactured products. There seems to exist two most important factors, which are activating all other managerial issues. Interestingly, product design issues do not activate other issues, which may be explained by the fact that the company itself is managing remanufacturing of its own products. However, experience shows that in most of the reported cases of remanufacturing, factors related to product design play very important role and trigger activation of other issues.

Buy-back policy decision in managing reverse logistics

In acquisition planning of Product Recovery Management, the decision maker intends to find out the optimal buy-back period of a used product minimising the economic benefit from remanufacturing. For certain products, which are under a free servicing policy by the company, the acquisition planning is controlled by two indices, one defined by the service management of the company and the other, defined by the working environment at the users end. In this paper we tried to study this hypothesis and establish the expression of these indices in terms of various economic parameters relating to the remanufacturing process.

An empirical investigation on the feasibility of remanufacturing activities in the Indian economy

In this paper, an empirical study is carried out to explore the reasons behind the unpopularity of remanufacturing business in India. The critical issues relevant to remanufacturing are studied. This reveals the contribution of the key factors which somewhat determine the non-acceptance of remanufacturing as a business activity in India. Subsequently, the analysis leads to formation of classes of sectors as per the role of the above factors.

Development of Predictive Maintenance Model for N-Component Repairable System Using NHPP Models and System Availability Concept

The technologically intensive nature of the predictive maintenance (PdM) method restricts its use to companies with higher turnover. This research is aimed to propose a PdM model for an N-component repairable system by integrating non-homogeneous Poisson process (NHPP) models and a system availability concept such that the use of technology is minimized, thereby extending its applicability to companies with lower turnover. It is known that manufacturing systems show reliability degradation with repeated overhauls and component replacements. This has the effect that the mean time between failures (MTBF) is non-identically distributed. Hence, the failure pattern of each component is analyzed using NHPP models and the mean system availability is calculated, which is now compared with the threshold system availability deciding the overall maintenance of the system. Further, the developed model is validated on a wheat flour mill.

Analysis of product design characteristics for remanufacturing using Fuzzy AHP and Axiomatic Design

ABSTRACT Remanufacturing is one such business proposition, which has become quite popular in the present day where environmental issues, reuse, sustainability concepts in product design, end-of-life of products are given due considerations. For an efficient and effective remanufacturing, product design plays a significant role. The objective of this paper is to identify the design criteria of a product that can enhance its remanufacturability and subsequently, using these design criteria a hierarchical model is developed to evaluate the remanufacturability between the product alternatives. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) integrated with fuzzy extent analysis is used to compute the weights of the corresponding design criteria and sub criteria and then Axiomatic Design (AD) approach is used to evaluate the alternatives. This leads to identification of the most suitable design alternative for remanufacturing. Further, the probabilities of satisfying a particular remanufacturability assessment criterion by the product alternatives are also computed. Sensitivity analysis is done to observe the stability of the priority ranking. This study is conducted at a remanufacturing plant situated in the south-western part of India which justifies its practical implication.

Simulation of tyre retreading process - an Indian case study

Tyre retreading is a process where used tyres are subjected to a sequence of value additive operations and are converted to reusable ones. Several benefits are associated with this process, like savings in cost, energy and reduction in environmental pollution. Collection of used tyres from the customers is characterised by the uncertainty in quantity, quality of used tyres, and timing of collection. The collected used tyres are subjected to two sets of operations, separated by a stage of inspection and subsequent rejection of tyres if found non-retreadable. First set of operations remains unchanged irrespective of the condition of used tyres, whereas the work content of the second set varies with the condition of tyres. Some activities in retreading process are essentially manual in nature and the durations of manual activities are probabilistic, leading to formation of queue and delaying the subsequent stages. The aim of this paper is to analyse the whole system of retreading process, keeping in view the stochasticity in collection and processing, applying system simulation so as to help the decision maker plan for judicious manpower deployment, particularly for labour intensive operations.

Analysis of issues controlling the feasibility of automobile remanufacturing business in India

In the last three decades, remanufacturing has grown into a significant business sector in developed countries. Take-back obligations, disposal bans, economic benefits, creation of stock of components/parts from disassembly and demand for spare parts during post product life cycle period are key enablers of growth for this business sector. In India, the remanufacturing business is mostly practiced as a disorganised sector. Though Indian automobile industry holds the tenth position in the entire world, second in two wheelers and fourth in commercial vehicles, there are no significant initiatives either from the government or from the industry to pursue remanufacturing as a separate business entity. This paper presents an empirical investigation of the Indian automobile industry and explores the reasons behind the slow growth of remanufacturing as a profitable business option. The survey identifies critical issues that impact the feasibility of automobile remanufacturing in India. It also identifies the differences in perception on remanufacturing by different players in the automobile supply chain, that is, heavy commercial vehicles (HCVs), light commercial vehicles (LCVs), car, two wheeler or original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers.

A neural feature extraction model for classification of firms and prediction of outsourcing success: advantage of using relational sources of information for new suppliers

Clustering is a family of classification techniques, often preceding further analysis or application in a number of fields like data analysis, strategy selection, supplier selection, etc. Data based neural techniques are gaining popularity in clustering applications due to flexibility and adaptability. Kohonen’s Self Organizing Map (SOM) is often used when the objects to be clustered have many attributes. In both supervised and un-supervised modes, Kohonen’s map exhibit good capability to extract a classification which assigns highest weight to the most important attribute. In this paper, we have applied SOM for classification of firms based on their sources of information for new suppliers/customers. Additional data regarding the outsourcing success of the firms’ is added to see if there is an association between a particular set of information sources and the probability of firms’ success to outsource to partner firms. Using data from World Bank BEEPS survey of German industries, we could produce three distinct clusters of industries. When successful outsourcing data were included, it still showed three clusters. The hits were obtained using specific support vector for identification of clusters. We found evidence of associations between relational sources and firms’ ability to outsource successfully.

Dynamic supplier selection model under two-echelon supply network

Dynamic supplier selection problem (DSSP) has been adopted.Two-echelon supply network (TESN) with assembly of the part-product is considered.A mathematical model based on mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) is proposed.Sensitivity analysis has been conducted by Taguchi method to find out the optimum level of parameters. With the rise in competition levels and rapid changes in customer preferences, companies feel the pressure to create an efficient and effective base of suppliers in order to achieve the competitive advantage for them. The selection parameters of suppliers do not remain constant with respect to time and moreover; with highly fluctuating market demand, the suppliers are also expected to respond to it dynamically. This paper addresses a specific dynamic supplier selection problem (DSSP) under a two-echelon supply network (TESN) for the decision maker to allocate optimum order quantities to different levels of suppliers. The problem here considers a TESN with an integrated approach where the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) selects the first-tier suppliers and in turn with their opinion decides for the second-tier suppliers. Second-tier suppliers supply raw materials/parts/components to the first-tier suppliers, and then the first-tier suppliers supply the fabricated semi-finished product to OEM. In order to solve such a kind of problem, a mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) is proposed to minimize the Total Cost (TC) of procurement for satisfying the OEMs demand. The problem incorporates parameters relevant to suppliers capacity, lead time, quality level of products, and transportation costs as a function of lead time. The model is validated through two cases with randomly generated data, and sensitivity analysis is conducted through Taguchi method using LINGO 15. This method not only helps to check the robustness of the parameters involved but also to set their optimum level. The analysis shows a significant reduction in the TC of procurement and the effect of each parameter on the TC are finally identified. The methodology adopted here can be extended to other organizations.

The changing dynamics in the worldwide mobile phone market: creating excellence through innovation management and collaborative relationships

Subject area – Supply chain management (SCM). Study level/applicability – Graduate students. Case overview – In recent times, the world market of mobile phone is in a flux due to many phenomena of importance like strong emergence of smartphones, Nokia losing market share in all segments of market and fast technological and supply chain innovation by players like Apple and Google. Elements of SCM and the way technology is acquired have assumed a place of importance to compete in the global market. A new standard of innovation and SCM is emerging together as the rules of market dominance are re-written all-over again. Expected learning outcomes – After completion of the case study, the students will understand: role of technological innovation in high-tech industry and global supply chains in changing the consumer behavior world over; the classic battle for market dominance with a new way of innovation management in technology and processes to create most efficient global supply chains; importance of SCM pr...