An Environmental Hedging Point Policy to control production rate and emissions in unreliable manufacturing systems

Abstract

Abstract:This paper proposes a new hedging point policy which integrates environmental concerns into the optimal control of unreliable manufacturing systems. The considered system is composed of a production facility subjects to random failures and producing a product family intended for a given market with stable demand. The manufacturing facility's operations cause harmful emissions to the environment, and may incur sanctions in the form of an environmental tax imposed by the relevant authorities. Given the significant compromise that must take place between inventory, backlog and taxes costs, the main objective of this paper is to propose a feedback adaptive control policy which provides a better control of the production rate and the emissions generated. Under the hedging point policies (HPP) category, a new structure called the Environmental Hedging Point Policy (EHPP) is proposed. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposal, an experimental approach based on simulation modelling, variance analysis and response surface methodology (RSM) is applied. The results show a significant gain in terms of incurred costs compared to those incurred when the system is governed by a classical HPP. An improved version of EHPP is also proposed for systems with high emission rates. Several sensitivity analyses are conducted to illustrate the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed policies.

A fuzzy hedging point policy for sustainable manufacturing system

“…For the case of failure-prone manufacturing system, this policy has been shown to be optimal (see for examples [9], [10] and [11]). The hedging point policy has been adapted in [12] to take into account the pollutant emissions during the production.…”

“…In this paper, based on the results obtained in [12], we redefine the hedging point policy to include at the same time the three pillars of sustainable development. For this, we propose to use fuzzy logic which is a very interesting tool for representing human factors [13].…”

Inventory management under joint product recovery and cap-and-trade constraints

“…Early research efforts in product recovery and a cap-and-trade scheme (Chaa- Bing et al (2015), Pan and Li (2015), and Ben-Salem et al (2015). Nevertheless, the role that could play inventory policies in the presence of environmental legislations is still not clear and more studies are necessary.…”

“…proach Ben-Salem et al (2015) proposed the "Environmental Hedging Point Policy,"a hedging point policy integrating environmental issues into unreliable manufacturing systems. Table 1 summarizes the reviewed papers and positions our work.…”

Production and uncertain green subcontracting control for an unreliable manufacturing system facing emissions

“…In the context of the optimal control theory, Ben-Salem et al (2015b) studied a pollutant manufacturing system composed of a single machine subject to random failures and repair activities, and producing a single type of product. Under the emission cap approach, the authors developed a control policy with multiple thresholds, called EHPP, which integrates the emission level into the production decision.…”