COVID -19 Impact on a Sustainable Production Model with Volume Agility and Advertisement Dependent Demand

The novel coronavirus has a significant impact on the whole world, especially the manufacturing sector. In this pandemic, the demand of personal protective equipment (PPE) viz., masks, face shields, gloves, hand sanitizer, etc., has increased rapidly, which has put an additional pressure on the manufacturers to increase their production to meet the escalating demand. Thus, the agile nature of demand can be addressed by incorporating volume agility in the production process. Accordingly, there is an urgent need for the manufacturers to promote their products and also to keep the public aware about the importance of various preventive measures. However, as the pandemic continues, the excess production of PPE leads to a considerable amount of carbon emissions and waste in the environment. Motivated by this, the present study develops a sustainable production model with volume agility and advertisement sensitive demand. Sustainability is addressed by incorporating carbon emission costs during the production and inventory holding. The objective is to maximize the total profit by conjointly optimizing the cycle length, advertising cost, and production rate. A numerical example is included to validate the model. Further, the sensitivity analysis unfolds valuable managerial insights for decision-makers to better management in this pandemic.