Sustainable supply chains depend on three critical decisions: production, inventory management, and distribution with reverse flows. To achieve an effective level of operational performance, policymakers must consider all these decisions, especially in Closed-Loop Supply Chains (CLSCs) with remanufacturing option. In this research paper, we address the Integrated Production-Inventory-Routing Problem with Remanufacturing (IPIRP-R) of returned End-Of-Life (EOL) products. The aim behind solving this optimization problem is to minimize conjointly the total manufacturing, remanufacturing, setup, inventory, and routing costs over the planning horizon. A two-phase decomposition heuristic is developed to solve the model iteratively. Our study finds its originality in the fact of jointly optimizing the Capacitated Lot-Sizing Problem with Remanufacturing (CLSP-R) option and the Vehicle Routing Problem with Simultaneous Pick-up and Delivery (VRPSPD) in a single framework. Numerical results showed that our solution approach provides good solutions regarding small and medium-scale size instances under acceptable computational time, especially for problems occurring with significant manufacturing and remanufacturing costs under relatively low pickup requests.

Production rescheduling involves re-optimizing production schedules in response to disruptions that render the initial schedule inefficient or unfeasible. This process requires simultaneous consideration of multiple objectives to develop new schedules that are both efficient and stable. However, existing review papers have paid limited attention to the multi-objective optimization techniques employed in this context. To address this gap, this paper presents a systematic literature review on multi-objective production rescheduling, examining diverse shop-floor environments. Adhering to the PRISMA guidelines, a total of 291 papers were identified. From this pool, studies meeting the inclusion criteria were selected and analyzed to provide a comprehensive overview of the problems tackled, dynamic events managed, objectives considered, and optimization approaches discussed in the literature. This review highlights the primary multi-objective optimization methods used in relation to rescheduling strategies and the dynamic disruptive events studied. Findings reveal a growing interest in this research area, with “a priori” and “a posteriori” optimization methods being the most commonly implemented and a notable rise in the use of the latter. Hybridized algorithms have shown superior performance compared to standalone algorithms by leveraging combined strengths and mitigating individual weaknesses. Additionally, “interactive” and “Pareto pruning” methods, as well as the consideration of human factors in flexible production systems, remain under-explored.

In this paper, we consider a job-shop scheduling problem with mixed blocking constraints. Contrary to most previous studies, where no blocking or only one type of blocking constraint was used among successive operations, we assume that, generally, we may address several different blocking constraints in the same scheduling problem depending on the intermediate storage among machines, the characteristics of the machines, the technical constraints, and even the jobs. Our objective was to schedule a set of jobs to minimize the makespan. Thus, we propose, for the first time, a mathematical model of the job-shop problem taking into account the general case of mixed blocking constraints, and the results were obtained using Mosel Xpress software. Then, after explaining why and how groups of jobs have to be processed, a blocking constraint conflict-free warranted evaluation function is proposed and tested with the particle swarm optimization and genetic algorithm methods. The results prove that we obtained a near-optimal solution to this problem in a very short time.

Leasing has proven to be a business model that is perfectly suited to the circular economy. It significantly contributes to sustainable development by enabling the reuse of machinery and equipment after each lease period and by including preventive maintenance and overhauls within and between lease terms. This helps to extend the life cycle of equipment, promote value recovery, and reduce waste. This paper examines an imperfect preventive maintenance (PM) strategy applied to equipment rented under the terms of “free leasing”. In free leasing, the lessor makes the equipment available to the customer for a specified period of time without charging rent. In return, the customer is required to purchase the equipment’s consumables exclusively from the lessor. The lessor is also responsible for the maintenance of the equipment at the customer’s premises. The greater the quantity of consumables used by the customer, the more the equipment will deteriorate. Consequently, the lessor must be able to determine the most effective approach to preventive maintenance, ensuring that it aligns with the customer’s planned usage rate while maximizing profit. This work proposes a PM strategy to be adopted by the lessor during the free lease period. This strategy involves the performance of imperfect PM actions just before the start of the lease period and then periodically. Different packages of preventive actions can be applied each time, with each package having a different cost depending on the level of effectiveness in terms of rejuvenating the equipment. Minimal repairs are performed in the event of equipment failure. The decision variables are the PM period to be adopted and the maintenance efficiency level to be chosen for each preventive intervention. The objective is to determine, for a given customer with an estimated consumption rate profile of consumables, the optimal values of these decision variables so that the lessor maximizes their profit. A mathematical model is developed to express the lessor’s average profit over each lease period. A solution procedure is developed for small instances of the problem, and an Artificial Bee Colony algorithm is implemented for larger instances. A numerical example and a sensitivity analysis are presented.

Ce sujet de thèse concerne de manière générale l'évaluation des performances et l'ordonnancement dans des systèmes de production flexibles et principalement les problèmes d'ordonnancement d'atelier de type Flow-Shop et Flow-Shop hybride. Le problème d'ordonnancement d'un Flow-Shop peut être défini ainsi : un ensemble de N jobs composés chacun de M opérations, doivent passer sur M machines dans le même ordre. Une machine peut exécuter une seule opération à la fois, chaque job ne peut avoir qu'une seule opération en cours de réalisation simultanément et la préemption n'est pas autorisée. Dans le cas des Flow-Shops hybrides, Mk machines identiques sont disponibles à chaque étage k en un ou plusieurs exemplaires. Pour cette étude, notre objectif est toujours de minimiser le temps total d'exécution aussi appelé makespan. Les problèmes d'ordonnancement les plus répandus sont de type Flow-Shop classique où les espaces de stockage entre les machines sont considérées comme infinies. D'autres problèmes sont caractérisés par des capacités de stockage limitées ou nulles qui engendre une seule contrainte de blocage. Cette contrainte peut être un blocage classique (de type RSb) ou particulier (de type RCb ou RCb*). Dans nos travaux de recherche, nous présentons un cas général qui peut être tiré de l'industrie et modélisé sous forme de systèmes de type Flow-Shop et Flow-Shop hybride soumis simultanément à plusieurs types de blocage. Pour résoudre ce genre de problèmes, nous avons étudié dans cette thèse la complexité de ces systèmes et nous avons proposé des méthodes exactes, des méthodes approchées ainsi que des bornes inférieures