Coordination policy for a three echelon supply chain considering imperfect quality items

Abstract

In this study, we develop a three echelon supply chain model for items to determine the optimal reliability and production rate, which achieves the biggest total integrated profit for an imperfect manufacturing process. Here, we have taken a supplier, a manufacturer and a retailer in which supplier supplies raw materials to manufacturer, manufacturer produces perfect and imperfect quality items because practically it happens and manufacturer supplies perfect quality items to the retailers. In production system, production facility may shift from an in-control state to an out-of-control state at any random time. The basic assumption of classical economic manufacturing quantity model is that all manufacturing items are of perfect quality but the assumption is not true in practice. The proposed study is formulated assuming that a certain percent of total product is defective. This percentage also varies with production rate and production run time. The defective items are restored in original quality by reworked at some costs to maintain the quality of products in a competitive market. Finally, numerical example and its graphical representation are given to illustrate the proposed model. Sensitivity analysis is also provided to test feasibility of the model.

Keywords

• Three echelon supply chain
• Imperfect production process
• Backlogging