A Holistic Framework for Evaluation and Selection of Remanufacturing Operations: An Approach

Abstract

Lack of efficient evaluation methods to help deci-sion makers in making informed decision regarding in-housetechnology investments, outsourcing technology, and manualactivities in the remanufacturing industry has raised seriousconcerns in the selection process of technologies based oncompany size and resources. This has resulted in the inabilityof decision makers to broadly assess the scope of alternativetechnologies against remanufacturing processes. Thus, it hasresulted in the choice of a common solution based on incon-sistencies and uncertainties. This paper proposes a holisticframework that can assist decision makers in evaluating theremanufacturing operations by offering better understandingof the performance and potential capabilities in the selectionof appropriate technology. The salient feature of the proposedframework is its utilization of the fuzzy logic method as guid-ing tool to analyze criteria for technology selection in order tomake informed decisions on whether to invest or outsource atechnology or use labor-intensive operations to the specificprocess. The paper also highlights importance of the technol-ogy assessment framework in aligning and consolidating thededicated thinking for the life cycle of the particular technol-ogy. The major contribution of the framework is its integrationof obsolete and disposal phases with the acquisition and adop-tion phases. Therefore, during technology assessment,decision makers are guided by a step-by-step iterative processon technology requirement verification.