A Practical Approach for Managing Uncertainty in Remanufacturing: Identifying Leverage Points Using Design Structure Matrix

Remanufacturing is a crucial component for our societies to move toward a circular economy. Compared to new manufacturing, the distinctive nature of remanufacturing is found to have high variability, high uncertainty and, thereby, complexity. Therefore, remanufacturers need to enhance their ability to adjust their systems flexibly. Especially, the ability to reconfigure the production planning and control is crucial for reacting to the high variability and uncertainty. However, few practical methods to do that are available so far. Therefore, to solve this problem, this paper aims to propose a method for designing processes of production planning and control in remanufacturing based on the concept of loosely coupled systems. In the proposed method, Design Structure Matrix (DSM) is applied to identify loosely coupled subsystems that enable to localize impacts of changes within themselves. These subsystems are also utilized to appropriately determine leverage points, as well as allocate human resource. Through the application to a real case of remanufacturing, the proposed method was found to be effective for reconfiguring teams and processes for production planning and control depending on given uncertainties, as well as performing production planning and control activities efficiently.