Remanufacturing
Assembly Line
Remanufacturing Initiation for Original Equipment Manufacturers
Remanufacturing is an industrial process in which a core – a used, discarded, or broken product – is transformed into a product with a like-new specification and condition. However, to this date, remanufacturing activities on the market are few compared to manufacturing. There are several types of remanufacturers; the least common type is the original equipment remanufacturer, an original equipment manufacturer that not only manufactures new products but also remanufactures cores of its own products. Remanufacturing is potentially becoming a more widely used industrial process for original equipment manufacturers, and increased remanufacturing activities can positively contribute to the environment. The contribution comes from a reduction of raw material and energy consumption compared to manufacturing. Therefore, remanufacturing has the potential to decouple environmental impact from economic growth, thus contributing to more sustainable societies. However, assessing the benefits of remanufacturing does not directly correlate to growth within the remanufacturing industry. To encapsulate the environmental, social, and economic benefits of remanufacturing, manufacturers need to be aware of how remanufacturing can be initiated and implemented in practice. Therefore, the objective of this dissertation is to develop support measures for original equipment manufacturers to initiate profitable remanufacturing.
This research takes a stand in case study and transdisciplinary research where the initiation of profitable remanufacturing is studied at two original equipment manufacturers. The research study developed knowledge of how remanufacturing could be incorporated into existing operations at original equipment manufacturers. In parallel, financial assessments based on cost-benefit analysis were built to measure how well the case companies could perform remanufacturing. For the case study research, seven remanufacturing scenarios were developed, ranging from centralised remanufacturing performed by the original equipment manufacturer to decentralised performed at multiple locations using a retail network. Which scenario is preferable depends on, for example, risk-consciousness, cooperation between actors, and volume targets. However, given ideal circumstances, remanufacturing in-house in a centralised scenario was shown to be the most beneficial for the investigated original equipment manufacturer since the fewer middle hands and economies of scale also potentially enable lower costs.