Return multi sourcing lot-sizing problem in a hybrid manufacturing / remanufacturing system under carbon emission constraint

Owing to Environmental consciousness, the returned products/ treatment becomes a crucial issue. Returns treatment becomes an economical way that helps industries to minimize costs and to reduce energy usage. Along the same lines, the lot sizing problem in systems incorporating products treatment options or remanufacturing returns attracts more interest from industries and the researchers. In the present study, we discuss lot sizing problem in systems incorporating remanufacturing with returns multi sourcing option under a carbon emission constraint. The system studied is a single production line where both regular production and remanufacturing process are carried out, with different set up costs for each operation. We consider a returns collection phase from a certain number of customers / distributors with a deterministic returns quantity in each period of the planning horizon. In this paper, we propose a mathematical model for the problem, an adaptation of the well-known Silver and Meal (SM) and two versions of a hybrid method (HM1 & HM2) providing an approximate solution to the addressed problem. The mathematical model was tested on Cplex (Software optimizer), and the obtained results were compared with the ones provided by the adapted heuristic SM and the hybrid methods. The analysis of the results showed that hybrid methods provide good quality solutions in a moderate computational time.