Remanufacturing decision and sustainability under product life cycle uncertainty

Shi, Wenbo; Feng, Tianke; Min, K. Jo

doi:10.1080/0013791x.2014.986352

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…The toner cartridge remanufacturing program at Xerox, for instance, saved $200 million worth of material costs in five years by using remanufactured parts (Geyer et al [47,48]). Loon et al, 2017, highlighted the significance of remanufacturing in reducing resource consumption, increased profits and contributing to progress toward sustainability (Shi et al [49] and Gunasekara et al [50]).…”

Section: Digital Transformation Trends and Potential Applications For Reverse Supply Chains And Remanufacturingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Riding the Digital Product Life Cycle Waves towards a Circular Economy

Subramoniam

Sundin

Subramoniam³

et al. 2021

Sustainability

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Data driven organizations such as Amazon and Uber have raised the capabilities and expectations of customers to a new level by providing faster and cheaper products and services. The reviewed literature documented that 10–15% of the online products are returned and in many cases such products are not shelf-ready due to product obsolescence or slight wear and tear, thereby reducing profits. Many of these products are disposed of in landfills. There were very few publications that documented how integration of digitized product life cycle into the business model improves product returns and the remanufacturing processes. As societies continue on, environmentally responsible, digital journeys with connected devices and people, reverse supply chains and remanufacturing will play increased importance in fulfilling customers expanded expectations. The networks are evolving, wherein, data are collected from all phases of the product lifecycles from design, prototype, manufacturing, usage aftermarket, returns remanufacturing and recycling. The objective of this paper’s authors was to describe how all phases of product life cycles can be digitized to improve global reverse supply chains and remanufacturing. The authors performed a literature review and developed case studies to document current and to predict future transformational waves that will become increasingly used in many industrial sectors. The authors made recommendations about the importance of improved product design, reduced processing costs and increased use of remanufactured products based upon data on returns to manufacturers and service providers. This paper contributes to research by providing a framework of a digitized product life cycle integrated with the business process phases including remanufacturing and supported with real-world case studies for practitioners and academicians. The authors outlined potential future topics for academic researchers and practitioners, for expanding usage of digital tools in real-time predictive analytics to improve remanufacturing system’s efficiency and quality.

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Section: Digital Transformation Trends and Potential Applications For Reverse Supply Chains And Remanufacturingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Riding the Digital Product Life Cycle Waves towards a Circular Economy

Subramoniam

Sundin

Subramoniam³

et al. 2021

Sustainability

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“…According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF), it decouples economic growth from environmental impact [38]. Following this, several papers have emphasized the link between remanufacturing and sustainability [18,50,51]. The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) International Resource Panel (IRP) on the circular economy makes this link evident, highlighting remanufacturing as one of the key circular approach needed to redefine value for a sustainable manufacturing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a simulation-based understanding of smart remanufacturing operations: a comparative analysis

et al. 2020

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While the majority of literature on remanufacturing operations examines an end-oflife (EOL) strategy which is both manual and mechanised, authors generally agree that digitalisation of remanufacturing is expected to increase in the next decade. Subsequently, a new research area described as digitally-enabled remanufacturing, remanufacturing 4.0 or smart remanufacturing is emerging. This is an automated, data-driven system of remanufacturing by means of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) paradigms. Insights into smart remanufacturing can be provided through simulation modelling of the remanufacturing process. While the use of simulation modelling in order to predict responses and behaviour is prevalent in remanufacturing, the use of these tools in smart remanufacturing is still limited in literature. The goal of this research is to present, as a first of its kind, a comparative understanding of simulation modelling in remanufacturing in order to suggest the ideal modelling tool for smart remanufacturing. The proposed comparison includes system dynamics, discrete event simulation and agent based modelling techniques. We apply these modelling techniques on a smart remanufacturing space of a sensor-enabled product and use assumptions derived from industry experts. We then proceed to model the remanufacturing operation from sorting and inspection of cores to final inspection of the remanufactured product. Through our analysis of the assumptions utilised and simulation modelling results we conclude that, while individual modelling techniques present important strategic and operational insights, their individual use may not be sufficient to offer comprehensive knowledge to remanufacturers due to the challenge of data complexity that smart remanufacturing offers.

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