A Review on the Lifecycle Strategies Enhancing Remanufacturing

Remanufacturing is a domain that has increasingly been exploited during recent years due to its numerous advantages and the increasing need for society to promote a circular economy leading to sustainability. Remanufacturing is one of the main end-of-life (EoL) options that can lead to a circular economy. There is therefore a strong need to prioritize this option over other available options at the end-of-life stage of a product because it is the only recovery option that maintains the same quality as that of a new product. This review focuses on the different lifecycle strategies that can help improve remanufacturing; in other words, the various strategies prior to, during or after the end-of-life of a product that can increase the chances of that product being remanufactured rather than being recycled or disposed of after its end-of-use. The emergence of the fourth industrial revolution, also known as industry 4.0 (I4.0), will help enhance data acquisition and sharing between different stages in the supply chain, as well boost smart remanufacturing techniques. This review examines how strategies like design for remanufacturing (DfRem), remaining useful life (RUL), product service system (PSS), closed-loop supply chain (CLSC), smart remanufacturing, EoL product collection and reverse logistics (RL) can enhance remanufacturing. We should bear in mind that not all products can be remanufactured, so other options are also considered. This review mainly focuses on products that can be remanufactured. For this review, we used 181 research papers from three databases; Science Direct, Web of Science and Scopus

Circularity in waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) directive. Comparison of a manufacturer's Danish and Norwegian operations

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) as a reverse supply chain (RSC) has a low degree of circularity, mainly focusing on recovering or recycling. Targets to increase the circularity have recently been introduced in the EU WEEE directive. In this case study, we have investigated how WEEE is handled within an electric and electronic (EE) equipment manufacturer. The case study includes findings from two different Nordic countries, Norway and Denmark, with interviews of six stakeholders. The case study shows that there are significant differences in how the case company fulfills its extended producer responsibility (EPR), especially related to reporting. The study also found that there is a mismatch between the ambitions in the WEEE directive and a company’s approach related to circularity in the end-of-life phase of an EE product. Based on the results of this case study and from the literature we propose recommendations on alignment with other directives and on a common information regime within the WEEE RSC. Keywords: waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE); product information flow; reverse supply chain; manufacturer; circularity.publishedVersio

Circular supply chain management: A definition and structured literature review

Circular economy is increasingly recognized as a better alternative to the dominant linear (take, make, and dispose) economic model. Circular Supply Chain Management (CSCM), which integrates the philosophy of the circular economy into supply chain management, offers a new and compelling perspective to the supply chain sustainability domain. Consequently, there is increasing research interest. However, a review of the extant literature shows that a comprehensive integrated view of CSCM is still absent in the extant literature. This prohibits a clear distinction compared to other supply chain sustainability concepts and hinders further progress of the field. In response, this research first classifies various terminologies related to supply chain sustainability and conceptualizes a unifying definition of CSCM. Using this definition as a base, it then conducts a structured literature review of 261 research articles on the current state of CSCM research. Based on the review results, the researchers call for further studies in the following directions that are important but received little or no attention: design for circularity, procurement and CSCM, biodegradable packaging, circular supply chain collaboration and coordination, drivers and barriers of CSCM, circular consumption, product liabilities and producer's responsibility, and technologies and CSCM

Circular Production and Maintenance of Automotive Parts:An Internet of Things (IoT) Data Framework and Practice Review

The adoption of the Circular Economy paradigm by industry leads to increased responsibility of manufacturing to ensure a holistic awareness of the environmental impact of its operations. In mitigating negative effects in the environment, current maintenance practice must be considered for its potential contribution to a more sustainable lifecycle for the manufacturing operation, its products and related services. Focusing on the matching of digital technologies to maintenance practice in the automotive sector, this paper outlines a framework for organisations pursuing the integration of environmentally aware solutions in their production systems. This research sets out an agenda and framework for digital maintenance practice within the Circular Economy and the utilisation of Industry 4.0 technologies for this purpose

Standards in sustainable engineering and design

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The financial and environmental costs associated with the manufacture and consumption of products may be reduced through design for efficient production, service life extension and post-consumer value recovery. In response to today’s need to design with consideration for the whole product life cycle, British Standards Institution (BSI) published BS 8887-1 (2006) Design for Manufacture, Assembly, Disassembly and End-of-life processing (MADE). Original research into the distribution and use of this first part of the MADE series is reported in this thesis. The organizations that accessed BS 8887-1 were categorised using their Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code. The results are presented graphically in multilevel charts using the hierarchical structure of the SIC system. The study found that the majority of standards users that purchased or downloaded BS 8887-1 were companies in the manufacturing sector and particularly electronics producers. Educational institutions also showed high levels of interest in the standard. For the first time, the use of BS 8887-1 in practice has been investigated. The purpose was to discover if, why and how it is being used and to identify examples of its application in design practice. This was accomplished through semi-structured interviews with design practitioners from both industry and academia, thus helping to explain the results of the earlier SIC study. The information gathered through the interviews shows how BS 8887-1 has informed the design process and how it has been used in combination with various design and management techniques e.g. Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP). These studies suggest that demand for the standard has been stimulated by the introduction of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation, especially the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive. Importantly, the use of BS 8887-1 has been found to be helpful in winning new business and reducing the costs associated with manufacture, product maintenance and waste management. Based on the result of the qualitative research, a new model of the use of standards in the New Product Development (NPD) process is presented. The research was proposed by the Chairman of the BSI technical committee responsible for the BS 8887 series. The beneficiaries are BSI, industry and academia, since the investigation has shown BS 8887-1 to be of value, and has informed the continuing development of this series of standards. The thesis concludes by arguing for BS 8887 to become the basis of an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard in order to reach a wider audience. It also identifies a need for the standard’s design requirements to be supported with additional supplementary interpretation expanding on, and adding detail to, the information in the standard itself. Influenced by this research, at the time of writing a new BSI working group was being formed to consider developing BS 8887 as an ISO standard. BSI had also begun the process of commissioning a handbook to assist designers in the practical application of BS 8887 in industrial design

Robotic disassembly of waste electrical and electronic equipment

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is the world’s fastest growing form of waste. Inappropriate disposal of WEEE causes damage to ecosystems and local communities due to hazardous materials and toxic chemicals present in electronic products. High value metals in small quantities are dissipated and embodied energy from manufacturing are lost in shredding and crushing treatments of WEEE. On the other hand, manual disassembly is costly and presents safety concerns for human workers. Therefore, robotic disassembly is an ideal approach to addressing the treatment of WEEE. Despite extensive research in the field, large variations and uncertainties in product structures, models, and conditions is a major limitation to the implementation of automation and robotics in the waste industry. The ability of a robotic disassembly system to learn new product structures and reason about existing knowledge of product structure is vital to addressing this challenge. This thesis explores robotic disassembly for WEEE by building upon an existing research disassembly rig for LCD monitors and expanding it to address other product families. The updated disassembly system utilizes a modular framework consisting of a Cognition module, Perception module, and Operation module, in order to address the uncertainties present in end-of-life (EoL) products. A novel disassembly ontology is designed and developed with an upper and lower ontology structure to represent generic disassembly knowledge and product-family-specific knowledge respectively. Furthermore, a Learning framework enables automated expansion of the ontology using past disassembly experiences and user-demonstration. These presented methodologies form the main function of the Cognition module, which aids the Perception module and instructs the Operation module. The disassembly ontology and Learning framework are verified independently from the rest of the system prior to being integrated and validated with real disassembly runs of LCD monitors and keyboards. As such, the disassembly system’s ability to address both known and unknown EoL product types, as well as learn new product types, is demonstrated