Load Dependent Lead Times and Sustainability

The reduction of waste is a concept companies adopt in order to enhance their friendliness versus the environment and to contribute to sustainability. Constraints on lifetimes of products force organizations to carefully plan their production in cooperation with their supply chain partners in order to prevent decreased quality or waste of production parts and products. This gains importance because waiting times imply longer lead times charging the production system with work in process inventories. Longer lead times can lead to quality losses due to depreciation, so that parts need to be reworked if possible or discarded. But return flows of products for rework or remanufacturing actions significantly complicate the production planning process. We analyze sustainability options with respect to lead time management by formulating a comprehensive mathematical model. We consider a deterministic, mixed-integer programming model to highlight main characteristics of sustainability options and to derive managerial insights for production planning in the light of sustainability.