Varying Lifecycle Lengths Within a Product Take-Back Portfolio

Abstract

Product take-back and reuse is sometimes at odds with the rapidly evolving desires of some customers. For other customers, the environmental benefits of reuse more than compensate for minor drawbacks. “Selling a service” (rather than a product) through leasing enables the manufacturer to control the timing and quality of product take-back but current methods assume a fixed leasing period. What is needed is a method for fine tuning the time span of customers’ life cycles in order to provide each market segment the combination of features it most desires. This paper presents a new method for performing long range product planning so that the manufacturer can determine optimal take-back times, end-of-life design decisions, and number of lifecycles. The method first determines a Pareto optimal frontier over price, environmental impact and reliability using a genetic algorithm. Then, a multiattribute utility function is employed to maximize utility across different segments of the market and also across different lifecycles within each segment. Post-optimal studies help determine feasibility of component redesign in addition to parts consolidation. The proposed method is illustrated through an example involving personal computers.