Production and payment policies for an imperfect manufacturing system with discount cash flows analysis in fuzzy random environments

ABSTRACT This paper considers an imperfect manufacturing system with credit policies in fuzzy random environments. The supplier simultaneously offers the retailer either a permissible delay in payments or a cash discount and retailer in turn provides its customer a permissible delay period. We used an alternate approach – discount cash flow analysis to establish an inventory problem. It is assumed that the elapsed time until the machine shifts from ‘in-control’ state to ‘out-of-control’ state is characterized as a fuzzy random variable. As a function of this parameter, the profit function is also a random fuzzy variable. Based on the credibility measure of fuzzy event, the model with fuzzy random elapsed time can be transformed into a crisp model . We establish several theoretical results to obtain the solution that provides the largest present value of all future cash flows. Finally, numerical example is given to illustrate the results and obtain some managerial insights.