A production–recycling–inventory system with imprecise holding costs

This paper presents an optimal control recycling production inventory system in fuzzy environment. The used items are bought back and then either put on recycling or disposal. Recycled products can be used for the new products which are sold again. Here, the rate of production, recycling and disposal are assumed to be function of time and considered as control variables. The demand inversely depends on the selling price. Again selling price is serviceable stock dependent. The holding costs (for serviceable and non-serviceable items) are fuzzy variables. At first we define the expected values of fuzzy variable, then the system is transferred to the fuzzy expected value model. In this paper, an optimal control approach is proposed to optimize the production, recycling and disposal strategy with respect so that expected value of total profit is maximum. The optimum results are presented both in tabular form and graphically. 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.