A batch production scheduling problem in a reconfigurable hybrid manufacturing-remanufacturing system

In recent years, remanufacturing of End-of-Life (EOL) products has been adopted by manufacturing sectors as a competent practice to enhance their sustainability and market share. Due to the mass customization of products and high volatility of market, processing of new products and remanufacturing of EOLs in the same shared facility, namely Hybrid Manufacturing-Remanufacturing System (HMRS), is a mean to keep such production efficient. Accordingly, customized production capabilities are required to increase flexibility, which can be effectively provided under the Reconfigurable Manufacturing System (RMS) paradigm. Despite the advantages of utilizing RMS technologies in HMRSs, production management of such systems suffers excessive complexity. Hence, this study concentrates on the production scheduling of an HMRS consisting of non-identical parallel reconfigurable machines where the orders can be grouped into batches. In this regard, Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) and Constraint Programming (CP) models are devised to formulate the problem. Furthermore, a computationally efficient solution method is developed based on a Logic-based Benders Decomposition (LBBD) approach. The warm start technique is also implemented by providing a decent initial solution to the MILP model. Computational experiments attest to the LBBD method's superiority over the MILP, CP, and warm-started MILP models by obtaining an average gap of about 2%, besides it yields actionable managerial insights for scheduling in HMRSs.