Sustainable inventory policy for imperfect production system with imperfect rework and defective sales return

Over the last decade, environmental issues like global warming have become more critical to address. Thus, organisations are turning their attention towards tracking the carbon emissions of their processes. Further, despite technological advancements, industries even now face the problem of imperfect items during production. Thus, it gets imperative to screen the produced units before dispatching them to the retailer. Realistically, screening is prone to human errors. To enhance their customer's post-buying experience, the manufacturer allows the return of defective items. Towards his social responsibility, the manufacturer tries to reduce the environmental impact of the production process. Consequently, rework of the defective items has been undertaken. Moreover, rework process too is assumed to be imperfect. Further, carbon emissions during production, warehousing, rework and disposal have been considered. This study presents an inventory production model incorporating all the above-mentioned aspects. A closed-form solution along with an illustrative numerical example has been provided.