Optimising production, maintenance, and quality control for imperfect manufacturing systems considering timely replenishment

AbstractTo optimise production planning, maintenance strategies, and quality control in imperfect manufacturing systems, most existing works set the buffer stocking time at the cycle start time. However, excess inventory holding costs will be incurred if the buffer is stocked too early. This means that while the abovementioned setting can make the optimisation model simple, it might increase costs. Taking the uncertain practical buffer stocking time of an imperfect manufacturing system into account, this study aimed to find the production cycle, maintenance frequency, quality inspection cycle, and number of inspections that will minimise the expectation unit cost of the system. To this end, we developed a new model to optimise production, maintenance, and quality control considering timely replenishment. First, excess inventory holding and shortage costs were considered and the production process was divided into five scenarios based on the buffer stocking time and inspection time for assignable causes. Second, the link between production, maintenance, and quality was addressed by capturing the dynamic and random behaviour of production systems. An x-bar control chart was integrated into the model to monitor quality. A case study and sensitivity analysis were undertaken to verify the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed optimisation strategy.KEYWORDS: Imperfect manufacturing systemJoint optimisationQuality managementTimely replenishmentUncertain buffer stocking time Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Data availability statementThe data are given in Tables 3, 6, and 21 in Subsections 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3. The authors confirm that Tables 3, 6, and 21 are available in the following articles: Bahria, N., Chelbi, A., Bouchriha, H., Dridi, I.H., 2019. Int. J. Prod. Res. 57, 2548–2570; Salmasnia, A., Abdzadeh, B., Namdar, M., 2017. J. Manuf. Syst. 42, 44–56.; Hadian, S.M., Farughi, H., Rasay, H., 2021. Comput. Ind. Eng. 157.].Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China: [Grant Numbers 72101177, 72231005, 72261147706]; Tianjin Natural Science Foundation: [Grant Number 22JCQNJC01190].Notes on contributorsLiangxing ShiLiangxing Shi is a professor with the College of Management & Economics, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China. He was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar of China and America, a visiting scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, a visiting scholar with the Department of Statistics at the Pennsylvania State University. His main research interests include quality management and control, six sigma, lean production and decision making. He has published over 20 journal papers in European Journal of Operational Research, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, Quality and Reliability Engineering International, Computers and Industrial Engineering, etc. Email: shi@tju.edu.cnXiaolei LvXiaolei Lv is currently working towards the Ph.D. degree at the College of Management & Economics, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China. Email: xllv@tju.edu.cnYingdong HeYingdong He (*Corresponding author) is an associate research fellow with the College of Management & Economics, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China. He was an Eberly Research Fellow with the Department of Statistics at the Pennsylvania State University during 2018–2020, USA, a visiting scholar with the Department of IMAE at the POSTECH, Korea. His current research interests include quality management and quality engineering, decision analysis and robust optimisation. He has contributed about twenty articles to professional journals, such as IEEE Transactions on Reliability, IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems, IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, Information Sciences, Applied Soft Computing, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Journal of the Operational Research Society, Expert Systems with Applications, Soft Computing, etc. Email: yingdong.he@tju.edu.cnZhen HeZhen He is a professor with the College of Management & Economics, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China. His main research interests include quality management and control, Six Sigma and Lean Production. He has published over 200 journal papers in IISE Transactions, European Journal of Operational Research, Quality Progress, Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Production Economics, Quality and Reliability Engineering International, IEEE Transactions on Reliability, IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems, IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, and other international and domestic academic journals. Mr. He is an Academician of the International Academy for Quality, the recipient of NSFC (National Natural Science Foundation of China) Outstanding Young Scholars and the recipient of the New Century Excellent Talents programme, Ministry of Education of China. Email: zhhe@tju.edu.cn