Joint Life‐Cycle Dynamics of New and Remanufactured Products

Many products considered for remanufacturing are durables that exhibit a well‐pronounced product life cycle—they diffuse gradually through the market. The remanufactured product, which is a cheaper substitute for the new product, is often put on the market during the life cycle of the new product and affects its sales dynamics. In this paper, we study the integrated dynamic management of a portfolio of new and remanufactured products that progressively penetrate a potential market over the product life cycle. To this end, we extend the Bass diffusion model in a way that maintains the two essential features of remanufacturing settings: (a) substitution between new and remanufactured products, and (b) a constraint on the diffusion of remanufactured products due to the limited supply of used products that can be remanufactured. We identify characteristics of the diffusion paths of new and remanufactured products. Finally, we analyze the impact of levers such as remanufacturability level, capacity profile and reverse channel speed on profitability.     

Lot Sizing for Optimal Collection and Use of Remanufacturable Returns over a Finite Life‐Cycle

Reverse supply chains process used product returns to recover value by re‐processing them via remanufacturing operations. When remanufacturing is feasible, the longer the return flows are delayed during the active (primary) market demand period of the product, the lower the value that can be recovered through these operations. In fact, in order to recover the highest value from remanufactured products, the collection rates, return timings, and reusability rates should be matched with the active market demand and supply. With these motivations, this paper is aimed at developing analytical models for the efficient use of returns in making production, inventory, and remanufacturing decisions during the active market. More specifically, we consider a stylistic setting where a collector collects used product returns and ships them to the manufacturer who, in turn, recovers value by remanufacturing and supplies products during the active market demand. Naturally, the manufacturer's production, inventory and remanufacturing decisions and costs are influenced by the timing and quantity of the collector's shipments of used product returns. Hence, we investigate the impact of the timing of returns on the profitability of the manufacturer‐collector pair by developing system‐wide cost optimization models. Analyzing the properties of the optimal shipment frequency, we observe that the fastest reverse supply chain may not always be the most efficient one.     

Effects of Random Yield in Remanufacturing with Price‐Sensitive Supply and Demand

In this study, we investigate the effects of recovery yield rate on pricing decisions in reverse supply chains. Motivated by the automotive parts remanufacturing industry, we consider an end‐of‐life product from which a particular part can be recovered and remanufactured for reuse, and the remainder of the product can be recycled for material recovery. Both the supply of end‐of‐life products and demand for remanufactured parts are price‐sensitive. Yield of the recovery process is random and depends on the acquisition price offered for the end‐of‐life products. In this setting, we develop models to determine the optimal acquisition price for the end‐of‐life products and the selling price for remanufactured parts. We also analyze the effects of yield variation to the profitability of remanufacturing, benefits of delaying pricing decisions until after yield realization, and value of perfect yield rate information.     

The Effect of Competition on Recovery Strategies

Manufacturers often face a choice of whether to recover the value in their end‐of‐life products through remanufacturing. In many cases, firms choose not to remanufacture, as they are (rightly) concerned that the remanufactured product will cannibalize sales of the higher‐margin new product. However, such a strategy may backfire for manufacturers operating in industries where their end‐of‐life products (cell phones, tires, computers, automotive parts, etc.) are attractive to third‐party remanufacturers, who may seriously cannibalize sales of the original manufacturer. In this paper, we develop models to support a manufacturer's recovery strategy in the face of a competitive threat on the remanufactured product market. We first analyze the competition between new and remanufactured products produced by a monopolist manufacturer and identify conditions under which the firm would choose not to remanufacture its products. We then characterize the potential profit loss due to external remanufacturing competition and analyze two entry‐deterrent strategies: remanufacturing and preemptive collection. We find that a firm may choose to remanufacture or preemptively collect its used products to deter entry, even when the firm would not have chosen to do so under a pure monopoly environment. Finally, we discuss conditions under which each strategy is more beneficial.     

Design of the Reverse Channel for Remanufacturing: Must Profit‐Maximization Harm the Environment?

A key attribute of a remanufacturing strategy is the division of labor in the reverse channel, especially whether remanufacturing is performed in‐house or outsourced. We investigate this decision for a retailer who accepts returns of a remanufacturable product. Our formulation considers the cost structures of the two strategies, uncertainty in the input quality of the collected/returned used products, consumer willingness‐to‐pay for remanufactured product, the extent to which the remanufactured product cannibalizes demand for a new product, and the power structure in the channel. For the profit‐maximizing retailer, the differentials in variable remanufacturing costs drive strategy choice, and higher fixed costs of in‐house remanufacturing favors outsourcing. The variable remanufacturing costs and the balance of power in the prospective outsourced reverse channel are the key drivers of environmental impact, as measured by the retailer's propensity to remanufacture. While profitability and environmental goals often conflict, they align under certain conditions. These include (a) the third party has less bargaining power; or (b) the fixed cost for in‐house remanufacturing is relatively high. All else equal, when remanufacturing is outsourced, the environment fares better if the third party has leadership power. We generalize to the cases when remanufacturing achieves a quality level less than “good‐as‐new" and when used items have non‐zero salvage value. Analysis of these extensions illuminates how relative power in the reverse channel drives the firms’ preferences, as well as the end customers’ consumption experience.     

考虑法律约束的两周期电子产品回收再制造决策研究

研究电子产品制造商面临政府回收法律约束时的再制造决策问题。第一个周期开始时,制造商生产并决定新产品的价格。当产品的生命周期到达时,面对政府制定的回收法律约束,制造商回收市场中的旧产品用于再制造。第二个周期开始时,制造商同时决策新产品和再造品的价格。研究发现：根据逆向运营成本(即回收成本与再制造成本之和)与新产品生产成本的不同组合,制造商对应五个不同的回收再制造策略;当逆向运营成本低于一定阈值时,法律强制回收不会影响企业的利润;而高于该阈值时,法律强制回收会减少企业的利润,因为较高的逆向运营成本使得企业没有意愿回收旧产品。此外,研究收集了实际数据并进行了案例分析,结果表明研究模型具有较强的稳健性。     

Take‐Back Legislation: Consequences for Remanufacturing and Environment

In the last two decades, many countries have enacted product take‐back legislation that holds manufacturers responsible for the collection and environmentally sound treatment of end‐of‐use products. In an industry regulated by such legislation, we consider a manufacturer that also sells remanufactured products under its brand name. Using a stylized model, we consider three levels of legislation: no take‐back legislation, legislation with collection targets, and legislation with collection and reuse targets. We characterize the optimal solution for the manufacturer and analyze how various levels of legislation affect manufacturing, remanufacturing, and collection decisions. First, we explore whether legislation with only collection targets causes an increase in remanufacturing levels, which is argued to be an environmentally friendlier option for end‐of‐use treatment than other options such as recycling. While increased remanufacturing alone is usually perceived as a favorable environmental outcome, if one considers the overall environmental impact of new and remanufactured products, this might not be the case. To study this issue, we model the environmental impact of the product following a life cycle analysis–based approach. We characterize the conditions under which increased remanufacturing due to take‐back legislation causes an increase in total environmental impact. Finally, we model the impact of legislation on consumer surplus and manufacturer profits and identify when total welfare goes down because of legislation.     

An Analysis of the Eco‐Efficiency of Remanufactured Personal Computers and Mobile Phones

Remanufacturing, long perceived as an environmentally friendly initiative, is supported by a number of governments. Yet, the assumption that remanufacturing is desirable to society has never been systematically investigated. In this paper, we examine the effectiveness and eco‐efficiency of remanufacturing in the personal computer and mobile phone industries. We investigate whether remanufacturing substantially reduces the environmental impact, as measured by cumulative energy demand (CED), generated over the life cycles (LCs) of these products, and the size of any reduction. We also examine the relative eco‐efficiency of remanufacturing compared with virgin manufacturing for these two products, where eco‐efficiency includes both willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) for the products as well as the energy consumed in producing the products. Our main findings are the following. One, remanufacturing is an effective way to reduce the total energy consumed during the LCs of personal computers and mobile phones, with one notable exception, when the life spans of remanufactured products are substantially shorter than the life spans of their new counterparts. Two, a remanufactured personal computer or mobile phone is not always more eco‐efficient than a corresponding new product. Three, the WTP for remanufactured personal computers and mobile phones, and consequently, their eco‐efficiencies, are a function of the prices of the correspondent new products at launch and years elapsed between launch and remanufacturing. Four, remanufactured units are sold at a discount relative to the price of new personal computers and mobile phones. Five, on the whole, the market for remanufactured mobile phones is more eco‐efficient than the market for new mobile phones. Six, the market for remanufactured computers is more eco‐efficient than the market for new computers. Lastly, because the group of remanufactured products is heterogeneous, not all remanufactured units are more eco‐efficient than the average new computer and mobile phone. We conclude with a discussion of the impact of our findings on European WEEE and WEEE‐like legislation.     

基于产品寿命次数的闭环供应链生产优化问题研究

本文研究了单一厂商制造/再制造集成系统的多期生产优化问题.首先,基于闭环供应链的全生命周期思想,通过引入产品寿命次数的概念构造了不超过产品寿命次数而能够进行再制造的回收产品与新制造产品之间的数量关系;接着,验证了将可再制造产品全部用于再制造时能够实现利润最大化的目标;然后,给出了几个有关解的性质;最后,通过算例对本文模型的性质和规律作进一步分析.     

Forecasting Product Returns for Remanufacturing Operations

Driven by legislative pressures, an increasing number of manufacturing companies have been implementing comprehensive recycling and remanufacturing programs. The accurate forecasting of product returns is important for procurement decisions, production planning, and inventory and disposal management in such remanufacturing operations. In this study, we consider a manufacturer that also acts as a remanufacturer, and develop a generalized forecasting approach to determine the distribution of the returns of used products, as well as integrate it with an inventory model to enable production planning and control. We compare our forecasting approach to previous models and show that our approach is more consistent with continuous time, provides accurate estimates when the return lags are exponential in nature, and results in fewer units being held in inventory on average. The analysis revealed that these gains in accuracy resulted in the most cost savings when demand volumes for remanufactured products were high compared to the volume of returned products. Such situations require the frequent acquisition of cores to meet demand. The results show that significant cost savings can be achieved by using the proposed approach for sourcing product returns.     

Effects of Remanufacturable Product Design on Market Segmentation and the Environment

Despite documented benefits of remanufacturing, many manufacturers have yet to embrace the idea of tapping into remanufactured‐goods markets. In this article, we explore this dichotomy and analyze the effect of remanufacturable product design on market segmentation and product and trade‐in prices by studying a two‐stage profit‐maximization problem in which a price‐setting manufacturer can choose whether or not to open a remanufactured‐goods market for its product. Our results suggest that it is optimal for a manufacturer to design a remanufacturable product when the value‐added from remanufacturing is relatively high but product durability is relatively low and innovation is nominal. In addition, we find that entering a remanufactured‐goods market in and of itself does not necessarily translate into environmental friendliness. On the one hand, the optimal trade‐in program could result in low return and/or remanufacturing rates. On the other hand, a low price for remanufactured products could attract higher demand and thereby potentially result in more damage to the environment. Meanwhile, external restrictions imposed on total greenhouse gas emissions draw criticism in their own right because they risk stifling growth or reducing overall consumer welfare. Given these trade‐offs, we therefore develop and compare several measures of environmental efficiency and conclude that emissions per revenue can serve as the best proxy for emissions as a metric for measuring overall environmental stewardship.     

Competitive Quality Choice and Remanufacturing

We consider an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) who faces competition from an independent remanufacturer (IR). The OEM decides the quality of the new product, which also determines the quality of the competing remanufactured product. The OEM and the IR then competitively determine their production quantities. We explicitly characterize how the OEM competes with the IR in equilibrium. Specifically, we show that the OEM relies more on quality as a strategic lever when it has a stronger competitive position (determined by the relative cost and value of new and remanufactured products), and in contrast it relies more heavily on limiting quantity of cores when it has a weaker competitive position. The IR's entry threat as well as its successful entry can decrease the consumer surplus. Furthermore, our results illustrate that ignoring the competition or the OEM's quality choice leads to overestimating benefits of remanufacturing for consumer and social welfare. In addition, we show an IR with either a sufficiently weak competitive position (so the OEM deters entry) or a sufficiently strong one (so the OEM is forced to limit quantity of cores) is desirable for reducing the environmental impact. Comparing our results with the benchmark in which the OEM remanufactures suggests that encouraging IRs to remanufacture in lieu of the OEMs may not benefit the environment. Furthermore, the benchmark illustrates that making remanufacturing more attractive improves the environmental impact when the remanufacturer is the OEM, while worsening it when remanufacturing is done by the IR.     

制造商竞争环境下基于产品生命周期的闭环供应链的定价和生产策略研究

研究制造商竞争环境下基于产品生命周期的闭环供应链的定价和生产策略:产品第一个生命周期中,只有一个制造商利用原材料生产新制造产品,从第二个周期开始制造商生产新品的同时进行回收再制造、并且出现替代品生产商的竞争。建立两周期双寡头垄断的闭环供应链定价和生产优化模型,得到最优策略,然后将其扩展到多周期和无限周期的情况。结果表明:两周期中制造商应根据再制造成本节约的大小而采取不同的定价和生产策略;多周期中,除第一和最后一个周期外,制造商应采取相同的策略;无限周期中,制造商应在出现竞争后一直采用相同策略。三种情况下,制造商都应在第一周期中低价销售产品来保证第二周期中能回收更多的产品用于再制造以取得低成本的竞争优势;而且随着再制造产品成本节约的增大,制造商旳利润和销售量增大,并且竞争者的利润和销售量减小。算例验证了上述结论。     

再制造下租赁产品服务系统节约共享契约研究

再制造企业出租二手产品并在租赁期间向用户提供配套服务,企业提供优质服务的努力和用户精心使用产品的努力既会影响到使用期间的服务数量和成本,也会影响到退租产品的质量和使用寿命,进而影响企业的再制造成本和环境效益。本文研究双方努力程度对于再制造下租赁产品服务系统绩效的影响,引入企业对用户的转移支付作为调节因素,讨论基于服务节约收益共享机制下的最优努力程度与收益函数之间的性质关系。研究表明当回收产品关于再制造企业和产品用户努力程度的边际价值大于其付出努力的边际成本且服务节约转移支付的激励效果有限时,系统可以实现协调并且渠道总收益要优于传统固定服务收费的情形。进一步数量仿真发现:服务需求量和渠道总收益具有相同的变化趋势,增加服务量不会减少渠道收益;并且服务节约转移支付与再制造企业的努力程度成反比,与产品用户努力程度成正比。此外在不具有成本优势的条件下,再制造企业付出努力的意愿程度也更高。     

Models to explore remanufacturing as a competitive strategy under duopoly

Remanufacturing is a product recovery option that upgrades the quality of returns to “as-good-as-new” conditions. Remanufactured products cost less, and are sold with the same or better warranty as for new products. In this paper, we consider a duopoly environment with two manufacturers in direct competition selling their respective new products on the primary market. Specifically, we address the question: In case one manufacturer decides to remanufacture and sell remanufactured products on the price-sensitive secondary market, will it get a competitive advantage over the other manufacturer? We develop theoretical models for a single period and two periods, and show that under the stated assumptions, remanufacturing is almost always more profitable than when there is no remanufacturing. Although remanufacturing may cannibalize new product sales, the combined profitability and market share of the (re)manufacturer on account of new and remanufactured product sales improve over new product sales only. For the competitor, we get mixed results. In some situations, its profitability improves; in some others, it worsens. We also conduct sensitivity analyses with respect to the substitution parameters, price-sensitivity of the secondary market, rate of return of used products (cores), relative market shares of the manufacturers, and relative sizes of the primary and secondary markets. We conclude the paper with managerial implications and directions for future research.     

混合需求下考虑专利保护因素的闭环供应链定价与协调

在新产品需求为随机需求,再制造产品需求受销售价格影响的混合需求条件下,以博弈论为主要工具,研究了受专利保护的再制造闭环供应链的定价与协调问题,分析了集中决策和分散决策两种情形下的新产品最优订购量、废旧产品最优回收价格、最优专利许可费用、再制造品最优零售价格以及供应链的最优利润,并通过收益分享一费用分担契约对闭环供应链系统进行了协调,并通过数值算例验证了集中决策和分散决策情形下再制造成本节约对供应链成员的最优决策和利润的影响,以及收益分享.费用分担契约对闭环供应链的协调效果。研究表明再制造受专利保护的情况下,原制造商能通过专利许可费来影响第三方再制造商回收的废旧产品的回收价格和回收量,进而去影响原制造商和第三方再制造商的收益。     

The Potential for Cannibalization of New Products Sales by Remanufactured Products*

The potential for cannibalization of new product sales by remanufactured versions of the same product is a central issue in the continuing development of closed‐loop supply chains. Practitioners have no fact‐based information to guide practice at firms and academics have no studies available to use as the basis for assumptions in models. We address the cannibalization issue by using auctions to determine consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for both new and remanufactured products. The auctions also allow us to better understand the potential impact of offering new and remanufactured products at the same time, which provides us insights into the potential for new product cannibalization. Our results indicate that, for the consumer and commercial products auctioned, there is a clear difference in WTP) for new and remanufactured goods. For the consumer product, there is scant overlap in bidders between the new and remanufactured products, leading us to conclude that the risk of cannibalization in this case is minimal. For the commercial product, there is evidence of overlap in bidding behavior, exposing the potential for cannibalization.     

多再制造商回收定价竞争博弈

多个再制造商在同一回收市场中获取废旧产品并进行再制造,他们之间存在回收竞争.每个再制造商回收废旧产品的数量取决于自身付出的回收价格,同时和对手们的回收价格相关.目标是最大化各自的期望利润.本文首先利用优化理论和非合作博弈理论,证明了该博弈作为超模博弈,存在唯一的Nash均衡.然后通过比较发现竞争下的Nash均衡价格高于串谋下的合作均衡价格.最后通过数值仿真探讨了再制造商的数目和再制造成本对博弈的影响.     

Optimal Order Quantities with Remanufacturing Across New Product Generations

We address the problem of determining the optimal retailer order quantities from a manufacturer who makes new products in conjunction with ordering remanufactured products from a remanufacturer using used and unsold products from the previous product generation. Specifically, we determine the optimal order quantity by the retailer for four systems of decision‐making: (a) the three firms make their decisions in a coordinated fashion, (b) the retailer acts independently while the manufacturer and remanufacturer coordinate their decisions, (c) the remanufacturer acts independently while the retailer and manufacturer coordinate their decisions, and (d) all three firms act independently. We model the four options described above as centralized or decentralized decision‐making systems with the manufacturer being the Stackelberg leader and provide insights into the optimal order quantities. Coordination mechanisms are then provided which enable the different players to achieve jointly the equivalent profits in a coordinated channel.     

Managing Supply Risk for Vertically Differentiated Co‐Products

The manufacturing complexity of many high‐tech products results in a substantial variation in the quality of the units produced. After manufacturing, the units are classified into vertically differentiated products. These products are typically obtained in uncontrollable fractions, leading to mismatches between their demand and supply. We focus on product stockouts due to the supply–demand mismatches. Existing literature suggests that when faced with product stockouts, firms should satisfy all unmet demand of a low‐end product by downgrading excess units of a high‐end product (downward substitution). However, this policy may be suboptimal if it is likely that low‐end customers will substitute with a higher quality product and pay the higher price (upward substitution). In this study, we investigate whether and how much downward substitution firms should perform. We also investigate whether and how much low‐end inventory firms should withhold to strategically divert some low‐end demand to the high‐end product. We first establish the existence of regions of co‐production technology and willingness of customers to substitute upward where firms adopt different substitution/withholding strategies. Then, we develop a managerial framework to determine the optimal selling strategy during the life cycle of technology products as profit margins shrink, manufacturing technology improves, and more capacity becomes available. Consistent trends exist for exogenous and endogenous prices.