Models to explore remanufacturing as a competitive strategy under duopoly

Remanufacturing is a product recovery option that upgrades the quality of returns to “as-good-as-new” conditions. Remanufactured products cost less, and are sold with the same or better warranty as for new products. In this paper, we consider a duopoly environment with two manufacturers in direct competition selling their respective new products on the primary market. Specifically, we address the question: In case one manufacturer decides to remanufacture and sell remanufactured products on the price-sensitive secondary market, will it get a competitive advantage over the other manufacturer? We develop theoretical models for a single period and two periods, and show that under the stated assumptions, remanufacturing is almost always more profitable than when there is no remanufacturing. Although remanufacturing may cannibalize new product sales, the combined profitability and market share of the (re)manufacturer on account of new and remanufactured product sales improve over new product sales only. For the competitor, we get mixed results. In some situations, its profitability improves; in some others, it worsens. We also conduct sensitivity analyses with respect to the substitution parameters, price-sensitivity of the secondary market, rate of return of used products (cores), relative market shares of the manufacturers, and relative sizes of the primary and secondary markets. We conclude the paper with managerial implications and directions for future research.