Abstract
This paper proposes an approach to production planning in a supply chain that uses not only new parts but also reusable parts to make products. Such a supply chain is faced with an issue that the timings and quantities of returned products and reusable parts included in them are unknown. Our approach resolves the issue by sharing information among companies included in the supply chain. In this approach, a product manufacturer first obtains the data on the quantity of sold products from retails. Next, by using the data and reliability models of the products, the product manufacturer predicts the quantities of returned products and reusable parts at each time period. Using the result of the prediction, the product manufacturer performs production planning and informs suppliers of planned orders of new and reusable parts. The suppliers do their production planning based on the planned orders. A supplier of reusable parts sends the product manufacturer the data on returned products and reusable parts that the supplier obtained actually. The data are used to adjust the reliability models and consequently to make production plans adequate.
