Characterizing the Remanufacturability of Engineering Systems

TLDR

Environmental concerns over waste and landfill have driven research into more sustainable product design, with remanufacturing—retaining product geometry to preserve economic and environmental value—offering a significant impact reduction. This paper aims to identify design characteristics that facilitate remanufacturing and to develop metrics for measuring remanufacturability. The authors address remanufacturing drivers, review guidelines and practices, and apply these insights to evaluate the remanufacturability of an automobile door. Illustrative design changes that improve the remanufacturability of the automobile door are proposed.

Abstract

Abstract A growing concern about the environment, and especially about waste and landfill, has spurred research into the design of more environmentally benign products. A dramatic reduction in environmental impact can be made by product remanufacturing in which, in contrast to material recycling, the geometrical form of the product is retained and its associated economical and environmental value preserved. Our long term goal is to postulate and validate design metrics which effectively and efficiently measure the remanufacturability of given designs. The principal goal in this paper is to identify design characteristics which facilitate remanufacturing. This is accomplished by addressing the principal driving factors for remanufacturing, as well as identifying existing remanufacturing guidelines, philosophies, and practices. This information is leveraged and evaluated by investigating the remanufacturability of a product which is not currently remanufactured — an automobile door. From this, some illustrative design changes which increase the remanufacturability of the automobile door are proposed.