Date of Award

2012

Publication Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.Sc.

Department

Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering

Keywords

Markov Decision Process, Outsourcing, Reverse Supply Chain, RL Network

Supervisor

Walid Abdul-Kader

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Abstract

This thesis addresses the qualitative investigation of the reverse logistics and outsourcing and a quantitative analysis of reverse logistic networks that covenant with the option of outsourcing or in-house remanufacturing. Two models are proposed with an objective of contributing to decision making process for reverse logistics outsourcing. The purpose is to find a set of decisions throughout the product life cycle that maximizes both outsourcing and in-house remanufacturing. These models will also verify two hypotheses: outsourcing is more likely to be an optimal solution when variance in return rate is high, and also when the product life cycle is short in length. Then, a solution approach is designed for solving this problem which follows MDP that considers the firm following a dynamic capacity model and also a stationary capacity model. Finally, computational analyses are performed to demonstrate the applicability of the model. Numerical results justify the two hypotheses.

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