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Increasing the durability of electrical and electronics products is key to reduce our worldwide material consumption and the related environmental footprint. A valuable strategy to achieve this goal is extending the useful lifetime of products by means of repair. Methods to assess and rate the repairability of products have been developed recently. In this study, two different assessment methods, the Assessment Matrix for ease of Repair (AsMeR) developed by KU Leuven and the Repair Scoring System (RSS) developed by JRC, are applied to seven washing machine models. The data required for this assessment are collected through a combination of literature study and fieldwork at a refurbishment centre of large household appliances. The aim of this paper is to investigate (1) the ability of the two assessment methods to capture the diversity of products on the market, (2) coherence of results obtained with the methods, and (3) how methodological choices can affect results. The results suggest that there is no perfect correlation between repairability score and product characteristic such as consumer price: cheaper machines in general scored lower in terms of repairability, but the best score was not obtained by the most expensive model. This can possibly be explained by the fact that high-range models are designed for reliability rather than for (self-) repairability. Overall, results show a good coherence between the applied repairability assessment methods. Both methods rely on the selection of priority parts, which is a challenging task. However, the sensitivity analysis revealed that overall scores are not significantly affected by the number and the weighting factor of priority parts, as long as a sufficient number of priority parts are considered (at least five for washing machines). In addition, the number and weighting factor of some criteria and parameters could be reduced without significantly altering the relative ranking of the investigated WMs. This suggests that the methods could be simplified when tailored to assess specific product groups.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent a consumer’s repair strategy impacts the annual costs of ownership of a washing machine and two types of vacuum cleaner. Design/methodology/approach The annual cost of ownership is determined by calculating the annual life cycle cost (LCC) for the respective devices. The annual LCCs of the different scenarios allow a comparison of the different repair strategy options. A Monte Carlo simulation is run to introduce parameter variability. The device’s failure rate is estimated by a combination of data sets on the devices’ performance. Findings Results demonstrate that the repair of the devices considered is a more favourable option over replacement. A consumer who aims for the lowest annual LCC should allow for a high number of repairs per device, without putting a maximum on the cost per repair. However, the consumer should become more cautious when a device approaches the end of its expected lifetime. Finally, the purchase of warranty can be interesting when the warranty covers a sufficiently long proportion of the device’s (expected) lifetime and when its cost does not exceed a threshold proportion of the initial purchase price. Research limitations/implications The costs for repair might be overestimated. Future research can focus on the reduction of repair costs following self-repair. Practical implications The results provide strong arguments in favour of repair instead of replacement of broken devices. Originality/value This is the first research to quantify the influence of consumer behaviour in the context of repair of devices on the ownership costs of these devices.

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