Analyzing re-make versus buy decision in remanufacturing operations: issues and directions

Remanufacturing is a process whereby value from old products is recovered by replacing and recovering used components to bring such products to a new or like-new state. Today, both original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and third parties are engaged in remanufacturing activities .However, the supply chain sourcing in remanufacturing operations is more complex than traditional manufacturing due difficulty establishment of a sorting policy and the uncertainties associated with the quality, quantities and return timing of used products and components. The aim of this essay is analyzing how OEMs remanufacture can analyse the remake versus buy decisions. The literature discussing the problem of planning that affect remanufacturing is the difficulty in obtaining products used cores suitable for reuse. The re-make and buy question has always been a concern of complex nature which represents a fundamental dilemma faced by many companies. In particular, under the transaction economic cost applied to remanufacturing can be an important aspect of the assessment, especially understanding of how theory showed that intellectual property, operational assets, and remanufacturing frequency, brand reputation, technological uncertainty, condition uncertainty, product complexity, and volume uncertainty. Finally, the article concludes by providing the insights obtained from the analysis and future study directions in this field.