Amid growing environmental concerns, natural fibers such as date palm stems (DPS) emerge as viable alternatives in polymer composites. This study investigates the mechanical and physical properties of short-length DPS-Glas epoxy composites, incorporating E-glass hybridization and alkali treatment. Unlike previous studies that focused on long fibers or fiber dust, this research employs short DPS fibers through the hand layup method to enhance composite processability. The impact of fiber content and alkali treatment on physical, mechanical, and water-absorption properties was explored. Results show that tensile strength improved significantly with alkali treatment and was further enhanced through glass fiber hybridization. Similar trends are observed in both flexural strength and microhardness also. SEM analysis revealed superior fiber-matrix adhesion in hybrid composites, while hybridization and surface treatment reduced water absorption. However, fiber clustering at 20 wt % led to surface imperfections and compromised mechanical properties. These findings highlight the potential of DPS fibers in sustainable composites and emphasize the importance of optimizing fiber content for enhanced performance.

Remanufacturing is widely recognized as an effective strategy to address the negative environmental impacts of product disposal and minimize costs across the entire value chain. Short life cycle product like smartphone manufacturers and their e-commerce partners are offering tempting incentives to exchange obsolete handsets to gain market share. This increase in exchange programs has created issues about returns management, notably remanufacturing and disposal regulations. While we realize new product demand, we cannot guarantee returning item quality or quantity. Due to rapid technology changes that make components obsolete in 2-3 years, anticipating spare part needs is harder. An effective remanufacturing policy should replenish a percentage of spare parts inventory through returns recovery to solve these problems and optimize inventory levels. We propose two steps. First, we use Bayesian Estimation to predict returns and spare parts. This reduces production risk. The return quality function determines the spare part manufacturing curve. This two-step technique reduces production uncertainty and optimizes inventory. This study concludes with a comprehensive approach to smartphone returns management, remanufacturing, and spare parts inventories. Numerical examples show how our approach works.

In recent times, the effective management of rail fleet planning issues in transportation networks has gained immense importance in ensuring the financial viability of rail freight transportation operations. Unfortunately, several rail freight operators have been hindered in developing effective models due to the dearth of appropriate tools and methodologies. This, in turn, has posed significant challenges for planners who strive to optimize the transportation of manufactured products from diverse manufacturing plants to market destinations. To surmount the difficulties faced, a decision-support model is proposed in this research. The model employs a mathematical optimization technique known as mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) to determine the optimum combination of plant and customer pairs, the ideal number of trips between the pairs, and the maximum quantity of goods that can be transported. The MILP model is solved using an exact approach, enabling rail freight operators to pinpoint profitable routes, schedule their rakes to maximize freight trips, and guarantee efficient, competitive, and secure rail freight services. The primary aim of this study is to maximize the number of freight trips, as it has an immediate effect on the profitability of rail freight operators. Furthermore, this model can assist rail freight operators in managing costs and identifying new market opportunities, contributing to the long-term success and sustainability of their operations.

Remanufacturing is widely recognized as an effective strategy to address the negative environmental impacts of product disposal and minimize costs across the entire value chain. Short life cycle product like smartphone manufacturers and their e-commerce partners are offering tempting incentives to exchange obsolete handsets to gain market share. This increase in exchange programs has created issues about returns management, notably remanufacturing and disposal regulations. Due to rapid technology changes that make components obsolete in 2-3 years, anticipating spare part needs is harder. An effective remanufacturing policy should replenish a percentage of spare parts inventory through returns recovery to solve these problems and optimize inventory levels. We propose two steps. First, we use Bayesian Estimation to predict returns and spare parts. This reduces production risk. Second the return quality function determines the spare part manufacturing curve. This twostep technique reduces production uncertainty and optimizes inventory. This study also aims to identify and analyze the trade-offs associated with component commonality in the design of product families across multiple generations. By utilizing developed models, we conduct numerical analysis to showcase the practicality of our approach and derive valuable insights for managers. Furthermore, in the long term, these results may serve as a theoretical basis for expediting the development and integration of design, manufacturing, and services. This, in turn, can improve the responsiveness and efficiency of the overall design process, benefiting both technical and economic aspects.

Consumer electronics, such as mobile phones, laptops, and tablets, encounter the challenge of short product life cycles due to the rapid advancement of technology, marketing models, and rapidly changing consumer tastes. This study attempts to provide a forecasting model for a short-lived product for closed-loop supply chain planning. Importantly, we model the setting where the customers prefer to store the product instead of returning it for various reasons such as security and secondary use. We proposed a generic method that can be implemented for any technology-driven product's returns and remanufacturing process. We used the Graphical Evaluation and Review Technique to calculate the probability and quantity of product returns, the quantity of modules, parts, materials, and disposal. Then, we employed the Grey-Graphical Evaluation and Review Technique to calculate the expected time interval for core returns and the expected interval for the availability of module/parts/material for reconditioning/ remanufacturing of the product. An illustrative case study demonstrates the results of the forecasting model. Further, we analyzed the effect of customers' unwillingness to return the product on the reverse network. Our analysis asserts that the customer storing an end-of-use product has a greater impact on the probability of overall product return. Our analysis found that when customers tend to return the product instead of storing it for secondary use, the equivalence probability of returns can increase up to 91 %. In addition, we also address the effect of product return on the “ecological rucksack” of mobile phones. This can help policymakers design hassle-free return experiences and attractive customer incentives.

Natural fiber reinforced polymer composites are being used frequently for variety of engineering applications due to many of their advantages like ease of availability, low density, low production cost and good mechanical properties but natural fibers are more or less hydrophilic in nature. Therefore, an investigation has been carried out to make better utilization of a class of natural fiber that is date palm stem fiber, for making a wide range of products. Attempts have been made in this research work to study the effect of fiber loading on the physical, mechanical and water absorption behaviour of treated and untreated short fiber based epoxy composites. Composites of various compositions of different amounts of fiber loading are fabricated by simple hand lay-up technique. It has been observed that there is a significant effect of surface treatment of fibers on the overall properties of composites. Further enhancement of properties with lower water absorption rate was attained with glass fiber-epoxy based hybrid composites.