MAAN operates on a make‐to‐order basis and offers a
wide range of options for its products. The company’s
operations include component manufacturing, painting,
and assembling the final products. MAAN relies on a
number of suppliers for components and major assemblies
that are needed to support the final assembly operations.
Many of the suppliers use MAAN’s returnable metal
containers to ship their products to MAAN’s
manufacturing site and warehouses. These containers are
assets owned by MAAN and are designed and engineered
to hold particular parts and prevent damages. When all
parts from a container have been used, the container is
then shipped back to the suppliers. These containers
remain empty until the suppliers receive an order for the
particular parts they manufacture. These returnable
containers rotate continuously throughout the supply
chain bringing the necessary parts to MAAN.
A typical supplier may sell the same parts to multiple
companies, so the supplier, very likely, stores and uses
containers from many different companies. Occasionally,
MAAN receives containers belonging to other companies,
and MAAN containers have been incorrectly shipped to
other locations and never returned. Additionally, the lack
of a system for tracking of containers has created a
loophole for making anyone responsible for the loss of
containers. MAAN may know it has shipped containers to
a supplier, but may not know when or if the containers
were ever returned. Even though the returnable containers
are not used directly for production, they deliver the parts
necessary for production and assembly. Therefore, they are
an important component of MAAN’s assembly operations.
Poor management of the flow of the containers throughout
the supply chain could slow or even halt production at
MAAN and create storage problems and excessive material
handling at the suppliers. The research activities to address
problems associated with management of returnable
containers at MAAN are summarized in Table 1. The
remainder of this paper focuses on studying and analyzing
the current system, addressing the problem, and
developing recommendations.