Planning for product take-back and component life under uncertainty in technological evolution

In this work, we identify product take back period, component design life and the products end-of-life plan as vital factors for product take back policy. Our objective is to design the product for multiple life cycles so that part of the product can be reused in the next generation product. We developed a new model to optimize these factors, by minimizing total cost per product life cycle considering multiple-life-cycle cases. Trade off between initial manufacturing cost and remanufacturing cost; disposal and remanufacturing have been addressed. In addition to the uncertainty in component failure that is usually done in maintenance planning, we further focus on uncertainty in technological evolution