Title: Simulation of tyre retreading process - an Indian case study

Authors: Sandeep Mondal; Kampan Mukherjee

Addresses: Department of Management Studies, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, Jharkhand, 826004, India. ' Department of Management Studies, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, Jharkhand, 826004, India

Abstract: Tyre retreading is a process where used tyres are subjected to a sequence of value additive operations and are converted to reusable ones. Several benefits are associated with this process, like savings in cost, energy and reduction in environmental pollution. Collection of used tyres from the customers is characterised by the uncertainty in quantity, quality of used tyres, and timing of collection. The collected used tyres are subjected to two sets of operations, separated by a stage of inspection and subsequent rejection of tyres if found non-retreadable. First set of operations remains unchanged irrespective of the condition of used tyres, whereas the work content of the second set varies with the condition of tyres. Some activities in retreading process are essentially manual in nature and the durations of manual activities are probabilistic, leading to formation of queue and delaying the subsequent stages. The aim of this paper is to analyse the whole system of retreading process, keeping in view the stochasticity in collection and processing, applying system simulation so as to help the decision maker plan for judicious manpower deployment, particularly for labour intensive operations.

Keywords: tyre retreading; manpower planning; simulations; value additive operations; reusable tyres; cost savings; energy savings; environmental pollution; used tyres; customers; uncertainty; tyre quantities; tyre quality; collection timings; tyre inspection; tyre rejection; non-retreadable tyres; tyre condition; work content; manual activities; probabilistic durations; queue formation; queues; delays; stochasticity; processing; system simulation; decision making; manpower deployment; labour intensive operations; Elgitread; Dhanbad; India; motor cars; heavy commercial vehicles; light commercial vehicles; logistics systems; logistics management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2012.050161

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2012 Vol.13 No.4, pp.525 - 539

Published online: 10 Dec 2014 *

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