Heuristic policies for the stochastic economic lot sizing problem with remanufacturing under service level constraints

Abstract

In this paper, we address the stochastic economic lot sizing problem with remanufacturing under service level constraints. The problem emerges in hybrid production systems where demand can be met via two alternative sources: manufacturing new products and remanufacturing returned products. The deterministic counterpart of this problem has been considered in the literature and it is shown to be NP-Hard. We focus on the case where period demands and returns are stochastic. The optimal solution to this problem is not a deterministic production schedule but a control policy, yet its structure has not yet been characterized. We propose two heuristic policies for the problem that make use of simple decision rules to control manufacturing and remanufacturing operations and present mathematical models thereof.