An Investigation On The Supply Chain Implications Of Modularized Designs Considering End-of-life And Life Expectancy
Open Access
- Author:
- Philip, Nirup
- Graduate Program:
- Industrial Engineering
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- None
- Committee Members:
- Gul Kremer, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
- Keywords:
- Modularity
end-of-life
supply chain
DFA
DFV - Abstract:
- Modularity aids in the development of new products quickly and easily. Companies nowadays are faced with the challenge of providing as much variety as possible; accordingly, mass customization is adopted. Mass customization frequently employs modularity. However, in order to mass customize effectively, supply chain factors also have to be taken into account. Along with supply chain and manufacturing considerations growing environmental concerns have forced companies to look at the end-of-life options for different components present in their products. This study presents a framework to incorporate component end-of-life options (i.e., reuse, recycle and dispose) during early design stages in order to simultaneously account for supply chain factors, such as cost and carbon footprint. Manufacturers could benefit from a methodology that analyzes modular product architectures for overall life-cycle efficiency. In order to accomplish this, we extend a software framework originally developed by (Gupta and Okudan, 2008); this software aimed at creating a computational design tool that would aid designers in developing new modular products by taking into account design for assembly (DfA) and design for variety (DfV). This is an extension to that work where the user will have the ability to generate designs taking into account component end-of-life options, and to select suppliers for the components present in these modules. Three types of modularization methodologies are used and their results are analyzed. In the first methodology the decomposition approach (DA) is used where the main focus for modularization is component suitability in addition to their interactions. For the second modularization method a new methodology called green decomposition approach (Green DA) is presented in which the end-of-life options are used to determine the component suitability; however, the decomposition algorithm is still employed. In the third approach, a simulated annealing (SA) inspired hierarchical search algorithm is used. In all three methodologies component suitability, life expectancy and end-of-life are used as criteria for module selection, this enables us to compare the three which methodologies. Suppliers are then iv selected for these components based on their cost, lead time and overall carbon footprint. This enables the designer to understand the trade-offs between the designs generated by each of these modularization methodologies and their associated costs, lead times and carbon footprints. We compare two designs which are selected based on their DFA index and the three main modularization methodologies. The decomposition approach with a three module assembly generates the lowest total cost however the hierarchical search algorithm methodology generates the option with a lower carbon footprint.