Remanufacturing Primer
The purpose of the Remanufacturing Assessment Tool is to provide corporate decision
makers with the ability to assess the suitability of a product to be remanufactured.
Remanufacturing is an industrial process by which retired or non-functional products
are returned to “like-new” or “better than new” condition. Over the years, Remanufacturing
has become one of the most widely adopted implementation strategies for extending
product life cycle, closing the loop on material flows, and reducing total material
consumption. The process of remanufacturing can contribute significantly to the
overall sustainability of a product program. This can be seen by studying large
corporations such as Caterpillar, Xerox, and Arvin Meritor, which are widely recognized
for their successful product remanufacturing programs. The level of remanufacturing
success achieved by these organizations was attained through innovative product
development programs focused on the entire product life cycle.
Decisions made early in development can dramatically impact the full life-cycle
cost of the product. Huthwaite[1] revealed that a product design is responsible for
only 5% of a product’s cost; however, the design is responsible for determining
75% or more of the manufacturing cost. Nevins and Whitney[2] show that 70% of a product’s
life cycle cost is determined in the design phase. It is clearly important to educate
the design team on the full life cycle impact of the product, and to provide them
with tools to be used as early as possible to enable them to minimize the full life
cycle cost. The product development team plays a leading role by impacting how efficiently
a design uses material, energy, and controls waste. In 2006, Nasr and Thurston proposed
three laws of sustainable product development[3]:
- Minimize material and energy resources needed to satisfy product function and consumer
demand.
- Maximize usage of expended resources.
- Minimize or eliminate the adverse impacts of waste and emissions.
This reinforces that the overall viability of achieving improved sustainable production
metrics, for a given product or product family, can be greatly influenced by the
design criteria for the original product concept. Figure 1 illustrates the concept
that decisions made when the least amount of detailed product design knowledge is
available often serves to influence the product sustainability the most.
Figure 1: Ability to influence sustainability metrics
Remanufacturing (aka ‘reman’) is a process that recovers the embodied value of the
product and therefore impacts the sustainability of the product. Studies have shown
that remanufacturing can recover 85% of the value within the product.[4] Remanufacturing
is a production process though which products are systematically disassembled, cleaned,
and inspected for wear. Damaged components are replaced, feature upgrades can be
incorporated, and the product is reassembled and re-qualified[5]. For this reason,
reman differs from other recovery processes in its completeness: a remanufactured
machine or component should match the same customer expectations, performance, reliability,
and life cycle as new machines.
Remanufacturing can impact the cost structure during the entire life-cycle, and
design techniques can be applied to increase the remanufacturing recovered value;
therefore, decisions to include remanufacturing as a part of the program must be
made as early in the product development cycle as possible. Fox[6] contends that the
earliest product development phase, “pre-concept”, exists to validate the business
opportunity by evaluating the product options against the business case itself.
This validation however must be appropriate for the pre-concept phase of a program
given the level of detail and availability of data at this early stage.
Remanufacturing is a strategic decision that is not solely based on a single product.
A company must decide whether it wants to add remanufacturing into its product support
portfolio. It must decide whether it has the know-how and the infrastructure to
support remanufacturing. It must decide whether it can overcome barriers related
to policy or market if they exist. Once a company can commit to remanufacturing
as a global product support strategy, each product it produces can be evaluated
to determine the business opportunity.
While remanufacturing can be used to recover the residual value of products at end
of life, it must also not conflict with the current business model of the company.
In order to better understand the implications of remanufacturing, a company must
assess the current corporate strategy in conjunction with market acceptance and
customer requirements. The company must also factor in existing sourcing agreements,
institutional knowledge, and future legislation or barriers to the viability of
the program.
Next, the company must assess the product portfolio’s applicability to using the
remanufacturing process. The potential benefit associated with the product must
be sufficient to warrant recovery and processing. The product design must be viable
into the future long enough to achieve the desired contribution to the business
case and the sustainable production metrics.
Finally, the company must determine how to integrate remanufacturing into their
global product support strategy. Consideration must be given to the logistical factors
associated with the intended remanufacturing deployment model. The remanufacturing
program must be structured so that it can best meet the needs of the organization
and results in optimized sustainability metrics.
Through the use of the Remanufacturing Assessment Tool, users are led through analyzing
attributes that are common to remanufacturable products. Areas that need more analysis
or that limit remanufacturing are flagged and design guidelines are provided to
enable improvement. Thus, with a positive outcome, remanufacturing could be added
as a product requirement and the product could be designed to enhance recovery.
References