Development of an assessment model to increase the understanding about remanufacturing applicability

Remanufacturing can offer benefits to manufacturing companies and service industry, as well as for customers and the society. However, to make progress, the awareness of this potential and understanding of the applicability is too low both in industry and society. Customers also often do not have a confidence in remanufactured products as they do not know the quality principles of remanufacturing. Thus remanufacturing activities are still quite uncommon. This was seen also in a Finnish research project, in which new industrial resource-efficient collaboration forms, including remanufacturing were studied. It is clear that not all products or parts can be remanufactured in a reasonable way, but so far remanufacturing is far from its potential. One reason is that companies do not know if remanufacturing would suit to their business, if the products can be remanufactured or not, and if the customers would accept remanufactured products. As a whole, it is not known what needs to be taken into account to start remanufacturing business. To support manufacturing companies, which have an interest in remanufacturing, in a Finnish research project an assessment model outline has been developed to support decision making. The model reviews the remanufacturing potential first through profitability and market potential, and then through the suitability of a single product/ component for remanufacturing. Both product characteristics and manufacturing and logistics are considered. The aim of the model is not to give final "go-not go" decision but more to give understanding about the factors affecting the success in remanufacturing. For example, it is important to get the message that even if remanufacturing is currently not applicable for a specific product or the business the situation can be improved through new business model approaches and design for remanufacturing.