Swee S. Kuik

Sustainable supply chain for collaborative manufacturing

Purpose – Owing to the manufacturing trend of stringent product disposal regulations, a new business scenario, which requires an alternative disposal option on consumer products and further product recovery operations, is increasingly important for promoting sustainable supply chain performance. The purpose of this paper is to explore the use to post‐use stage of the product lifecycle, that may have significant potential for increasing product utilisation value and reducing product disposal to landfills.Design/methodology/approach – The paper proposes a re‐classification of the 6R (reduce, recover, redesign, reuse, recycle, remanufacturing) methodology for rectifying waste minimisation along a supply chain, to increase product utilisation at the post‐use stage.Findings – Intensive study of 6R considerations to improve end‐of‐life planning and strategy and extend of product lifecycle management is lacking. None of the existing supply chain frameworks clearly illustrates the aspects of 6R perspectives for t...

A Proposal of Value Co-creative Production with IoT-Based Thinking Factory Concept for Tailor-Made Rubber Products

Production companies are required to notice the importance of the paradigm shift from “use value” into “value in use” about their products and services. Value co-creative activity between the producers and consumers is essential to realise the paradigm shift in practical business case. The IoT(Internet of Things) is a powerful infrastructure to digitalise and increase the integration of vertical and horizontal value chains in the business process. We propose a value co-creative production system model under IoT environment with an innovative “Thinking factory” concept. Our current target is the rubber industry which is required to provide tailor-made products as human-machine delicate interface.

A study on value co-creative design and manufacturing system for tailor-made rubber shoes production — Construction of value co-creative smart factory

With the advancement in “Internet of Things (IoT)”, a smart manufacturing system has received much attention by worldwide manufacturers. In our project, the value co-creative design and manufacturing system for tailor-made rubber shoes using 3D reactive printer is proposed. This proposed system is basically constructed based on our proposed value co-creative methodology for mass customization scenario. In the proposed system, the delight running shoes are designed and produced by taking the real-time input measurements from customers, such as physical data, user comfortability, and etc. These measurements are then used for making tailor-made shoes and the production scheduling under IoT environment is also studied. In the smart factory, RFID tags are also installed and served as tracking devices when monitoring each operating processes along supply chains, and the multi-agent systems are used to adjust differential processing orders in accordance with delivery and distribution deadline and the conditions of machines and works.

Assessing Sustainability in Manufacturing Using a Fuzzy Expert System

One of the recent business challenges is evaluating performance measurement on product returns and recovery operations. Recovery strategy is important in minimising landfill waste. However, there is a lack of measureable criteria to examine the performance attributes of cost, time, waste and quality for a manufactured product with recovery operations in a supply chain. This paper proposes the development of a fuzzy expert system for performance measurement on product returns and recovery operations, which is one of the key supply chain management processes in achieving sustainability in manufacturing. Finally, contributions of this research study are provided.

Value Co-creative Manufacturing Methodology with IoT-Based Smart Factory for Mass Customisation

The future of productivity and growth in a highly customized production environment has received much attention by practitioners. This paper presents an innovative methodology of value co-creative manufacturing with Internet of Things (IoT)-based smart factories for mass customized rubber products in a real-time scenario. To implement the proposed system design, a three-layered business oriented model is developed to offer maximum value co-creation for 3D printing technology development by integrating cloud computing and Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) related to computational social science in customized manufacturing and product design. A Japanese case application is presented to demonstrate its usefulness and flexibility for the proposed system design including a computational social scientific approach.

Extended EOQ model considering demand fluctuation in reverse logistics

Based on Dobos & Richter model, this paper proposes an extended EOQ model considering demand fluctuation with three recovery options in Reverse logistics. The model assumes Production Distribution to meet demand fluctuation and Disposal Distribution to conform to the dynamic quantity of recoverable used items. We find the optimal strategies by minimizing the total cost. Case studies demonstrate the extended model can obtain optimal decisions for minimizing total cost in production management considering Reverse Logistics.

Evaluation of recovery configuration options by product utilisation value

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose an approach to evaluate product performance of returned products, using four key performance attributes as the basis for improving sustainability through product recovery. Design/methodology/approach A fuzzy logic approach is developed to account a trade-off scenario for a manufactured product with recovery options. This approach is demonstrated using a numerical example and is validated using a case study in the automotive parts and components industry. Findings Product utilisation value (PUV) is found to be a useful index that manufacturers can use to assess product recovery options, as it brings together a number of conflicting parameters into a rationalised value for decision making. In addition, PUV provides a rationalised approach for comparing and selecting the most appropriate recovery configuration option. Research limitations/implications The authors only utilise four key performance measures to derive PUV. Further research is needed to modify and incorporate other measures that are important to decision makers to improve sustainability in manufacturing supply chains. Practical implications The proposed approach may motivate decision makers to consider sustainable recovery options by comparing PUVs of products for primary and secondary markets. The case study demonstrated the conflict and complexity organisations face in a global supply chain of a competitive industry. Originality/value The authors propose an approach to optimise trade-off considerations of selected performance attributes through PUV. This PUV as a benchmark can help improve recovery of the returned products and reduce landfill.

Remanufacturing Strategies for Sustainable Development

In recent years, the initiatives on sustainable business development have drawn significant attention by worldwide manufacturers especially for implementing remanufacturing strategies towards sustainable supply chain management. Sustainability term refers to the important trade-off decision making among economic, environmental and social responsibilities and roles through the value creation of commercial products and services. Remanufacturing strategies are currently considered as the viable post-use alternatives to a brand new product replacement. The post-use scenario consists of various operational processes, such as disassembling, inspecting, reprocessing, assembling, and testing when producing a remanufactured product. In this article, we presents an overview of the remanufacturing strategies towards sustainable supply chain management. A critical evaluation of assessment approaches with the practical implications is also discussed for future research.

Extended EOQ model considering recycling, repair and reuse in reverse supply chain with two types of demand fluctuation

Based on Dobos Richter model, this paper proposes an extended EOQ model considering demand fluctuation with three recovery options in Reverse logistics. The model assumes Production Distribution to meet demand fluctuation and Disposal Distribution to conform to the dynamic quantity of recoverable used items. We assume two kinds of demand distributions which are trapezoid and normal distribution in the extended model. Case studies demonstrate the extended model that can obtain optimal decisions for minimizing total cost in Reverse Supply Chain.

An Integrated Production Planning Model with Obsolescence and Lifecycle Considerations in a Reverse Supply Chain

Environmentally conscious manufacturing and product recovery are considered as an important research in the current business scenario. This is due to the associated costs for virgin materials and waste disposal treatment that have been significantly increased in a yearly basis. Currently, there is a lack of modeling into the problems of remanufacturing production planning with component obsolescence and lifecycle constraints. In practice, the planning decisions may have direct impacts on the amount of wastage and disposal along a reverse supply chain. This article proposes an integrated production planning model with component obsolescence and lifecycle considerations, which helps minimise the total associated costs of production, costs of remanufactured products and components inventory holding, ordering costs, and disposal treatment costs. Numerical examples are also presented to demonstrate this production planning problem for remanufactured products using mixed integer programming optimisation. Finally, several contributions of this study and future works are discussed.