In this study, we develop a three echelon supply chain model for items to determine the optimal reliability and production rate, which achieves the biggest total integrated profit for an imperfect manufacturing process. Here, we have taken a supplier, a manufacturer and a retailer in which supplier supplies raw materials to manufacturer, manufacturer produces perfect and imperfect quality items because practically it happens and manufacturer supplies perfect quality items to the retailers. In production system, production facility may shift from an in-control state to an out-of-control state at any random time. The basic assumption of classical economic manufacturing quantity model is that all manufacturing items are of perfect quality but the assumption is not true in practice. The proposed study is formulated assuming that a certain percent of total product is defective. This percentage also varies with production rate and production run time. The defective items are restored in original quality by reworked at some costs to maintain the quality of products in a competitive market. Finally, numerical example and its graphical representation are given to illustrate the proposed model. Sensitivity analysis is also provided to test feasibility of the model.

The objective of this work is to generalize the three echelon supply chain model proposed by Jaber and Goyal (2008) [Jaber, M. Y., & Goyal, S. K. (2008). Coordinating a three-level supply chain with multiple suppliers, a vendor and multiple buyers. International Journal Production Economics, 116, 95-103.] for multi-items where single item was considered in production and distribution. This paper develops the coordination amongst different parties in a three-echelon supply chain with a centralized decision process. Producer, suppliers and retailers are the parties of the supply chain where multiple suppliers deliver various types of raw materials to a producer; producer produces different types of items, multi-items, in different units of the factory and supplies the items to multiple retailers. Different deterioration rates for finished items and raw materials are also considered. The model developed of this paper guarantees that the local costs for the members either remain the same as before coordination, or decrease as a result of coordination. A numerical example along with graphical illustrations is considered and the sensitivity analysis is provided to test the feasibility of the proposed model.