Aftermarket remanufacturing strategic planning decision-making framework: theory & practice

The authors of this paper offer an aftermarket, remanufacturing (or reman) decision-making framework (RDMF), developed, based on a comprehensive set of strategic factors (Subramoniam et al., 2009a) derived from an in-depth literature review and case studies. RDMF is also grounded on results from an industry survey and related theory. The survey targeted Original Equipment (OE) suppliers that are involved in automotive OE production and also provide remanufactured (or reman) parts for the aftermarket, which includes the Original Equipment Service (OES) and/or the Independent Aftermarket (IAM) business. A response rate of 42% was obtained for the survey; the respondents were business unit managers or chief engineers from 18 companies in the United States and Europe who are actively involved in the reman businesses. The survey results helped the authors of this paper to prioritize and confirm the strategic decision-making factors from previous research. The key factors considered to be important by more than 50% of the survey respondents, constituting roughly 79% of the strategic factors were then incorporated into RDMF. The RDMF will be useful for aftermarket supplier companies in general and in particular, will be useful for automotive suppliers, involved with OE and aftermarket production.     

A critical assessment of motives for product recovery: the case of engine remanufacturing

Over the past decade, there has been an increasing interest in product take-back, product recovery and the (re-)distribution of these products. The automotive sector, in particular, has a strong history of product recovery operations, such as remanufacturing. Alongside this development, an academic interest in the management of re-use, recycling or remanufacturing has evolved and developed into the field of closed-loop supply chain management. Closed-loop supply chain management, however, is only characterised by a short research history, the earliest contributions can be found on reverse logistics and were published in the early 1990s. Due to the novelty of the field there are still a large number of unsolved research problems. One of these is the question for the rationale behind product recovery operations. This research is based on in-depth case studies within the remanufacturing facilities of a major European Vehicle Manufacturer. The article examines whether the ‘classic’ motives for product recovery are applicable to automotive remanufacturing. It concludes with a summary of the contributions this research makes to theory, to industry and to future research in the field.     

Elucidating complex design and management tradeoffs through life cycle design: air intake manifold demonstration project

The life cycle design (LCD) framework for enhancing design analysis and decision making is demonstrated through a collaborative effort between the University of Michigan, a cross functional team at Ford, and the US Environmental Protection Agency. The LCD framework was used to evaluate three air intake manifold designs: a sand cast aluminum, brazed aluminum tubular, and nylon composite. Life cycle inventory, life cycle cost and product/process performance analyses highlighted significant tradeoffs among alternative manifolds, with respect to system design requirements. The life cycle inventory indicated that the sand-cast aluminum manifold consumed the most life cycle energy (1798 MJ) compared to the tubular brazed aluminum (1131 MJ) and nylon composite (928 MJ) manifolds. The cast aluminum manifold generated the least life cycle solid waste of 218 kg per manifold, whereas the brazed aluminum tubular and nylon composite manifolds generated comparable quantities of 418 kg and 391 kg, respectively. Material production accounted for 70% of the total life cycle solid waste for the brazed tubular manifold, while auto shredder residue was responsible for half the total waste for the nylon composite design. The life cycle cost analysis estimated Ford manufacturing costs, customer gasoline costs, and end-of-life management costs. The nylon composite manifold had the highest estimated manufacturing costs but the least use phase gasoline costs. Significant end-of-life management revenues from aluminum recycling would accrue to Ford under automobile take back legislation. A total of 20 performance requirements were used to evaluate each design alternative.     

基于生命周期的干电池回收及其循环经济模型

介绍了产品全生命周期和循环经济的概念，提出了产品的资源循环模型。对干电池全生命周期的生命过程及阶段进行了划分，并分析了于电池的材料组成，提出了可应用于实践的干电池回收循环利用模型，计算出3种类型回收材料各自所占比重，为我国干电池回收业提供了决策理论和实践指导。     

A study of reverse logistics flow management in vehicle battery industries in the midwest of the state of São Paulo (Brazil)

Having the objective of minimizing costs and improving their image in the consumer and export market, car battery industries began to seek environmental alternatives geared towards sustainable development. Reverse logistics flow represents an unprecedented tool for the economic and operational development of company activities, as well as a differential in the search for competitive advantages through environmentally correct practices. The aim of this paper is to describe the reverse logistics chain adopted by automotive battery industries in the midwest of the state of São Paulo, proposing a reverse logistics framework for small manufacturers that creates actions aimed at not harming the environment.     

A new business model for baby prams based on leasing and product remanufacturing

A shift in business thinking from selling products to providing service solutions to customer needs is becoming noticeable. It is driven by increasing competition and the need to identify new profit centres for producers of mature products. This paper identifies a new product group that could be interesting from the product-service system perspective – baby prams. The study presents a new business model based on selling the function that baby prams provide through leasing prams. It discusses potential barriers and necessary changes in product design and the supply chain to make it work. The product-service system in this case could include the organisation of a reverse logistics system with different levels of refurbishment and remanufacturing of prams, partially by retailers. The new model may provide customers with a high quality pram in a “like new” condition for the period they need it, and may help avoid transaction costs of having to sell the pram on the second-hand market. Economic estimations point to a significant potential for increased profits, while the environmental potential should be further investigated.     

Environmental decision making in multi-stakeholder contexts: applicability of life cycle thinking in development planning and implementation

According to the targets set for sustainability, integrating the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs is one of the main goals for development projects. A major challenge in the development field is cross-sectoral integrated planning and achieving multi-stakeholder consensus for collaborative joint projects, especially when sustainability is a goal. This increases the complexity of the multi-stakeholder interaction in decision making and requires enhanced mechanisms for stakeholder participation, coordination, and commitment beyond narrow self-interest. A critical aspect in the decision making process is to enable stakeholders to not only interpret and make decisions based on expert judgments, but also to appropriately involve the relevant parties in the research and decision making process. Therefore, scientific analyses in multi-stakeholder contexts have to be more transparent, participatory, and stakeholder-based in order to provide useful information to assist responsible decision making.This paper presents an outline of a stakeholder-based life cycle assessment approach that can be used to support sustainable decision making in multi-stakeholder contexts. The framework is discussed and compared to other common methods used to support environmental decision making in development projects. We argue that the fundamental concept of life cycle thinking can be effectively used to incorporate stakeholders in the research and decision making process, which can lead to more comprehensive, yet achievable assessments in collaboration with stakeholders. Life cycle thinking is not just a way to examine environmental impacts of activities, but also a way to comprehend and visualize a broader set of upstream and downstream consequences of decisions in development planning and implementation. A life cycle framework including the mapping of stakeholder involvement at each activity in upstream and downstream stages would give stakeholders a holistic view that they otherwise may not have.     

Manufacturing actor’s LCA

Modern industrial environmental management encompasses life-cycle thinking. This entails considering not only the emissions and resource use of the company’s production processes, but also the environmental consequences of all processes related to a product’s life cycle. However, no single actor can influence the whole life cycle of a product. To be effective, analysis methods intended to support improvement actions should therefore also consider the decision makers’ power to influence.Regarding the life cycle of a product, there are at least as many perspectives on life-cycle thinking as there are actors. This paper presents an approach with which manufacturing decision makers can sharpen the focus in life-cycle assessment (LCA) from a conventional ‘products or services’ emphasis to a company’s manufacturing processes. The method has been developed by combining knowledge gained from earlier LCA studies with new empirical findings from an LCA study of an SKF manufacturing line.We demonstrate how system boundaries and functional units in an LCA can be defined when adding the perspective of a manufacturing decision maker to the product life-cycle perspective. Such analysis helps manufacturing decision makers identify improvement potentials in their spheres of influence, by focusing on the environmental consequences of energy and material losses in manufacturing rather than merely accounting for the contributions of individual stages of the life cycle to the overall environmental impact. The method identifies and directly relates the environmental consequences of emissions or raw material inputs in the product life cycle to manufacturing processes. In doing so, the holistic systems perspective in LCA is somewhat diminished in favor of the relevance of results to manufacturing decision makers.     

汽车工业规划环境影响评价指标体系研究

指标体系是战略环境评价的具体评价内容,即评价因子.本文根据汽车工业环境影响具有多领域、多成分、多层次立体交叉、时空范围广泛的特点,采用生命周期分析框架,系统识别汽车工业规划的环境影响因子;提出了指标的选取原则;基于生命周期分析框架对指标进行分类;以山东省汽车工业规划环境影响评价为例进行了实证研究.     

A tool to implement sustainable end-of-life strategies in the product development phase

Responding to constantly more demanding European legislation, notably for electrical and electronic equipment, worn-out vehicles or hazardous substances, manufacturers have to develop End of Life (EoL) strategies. The challenge today is to assess which “product EoL process” would be profitable for an enterprise given the business model in place. Most of the Original Equipment Manufacturers recycle or subcontract reverse logistic and EoL treatments. Recycling is currently the most common solution but it is far from meeting the goals of Sustainable Development. We believe that, integrating constraints from EoL strategies into the early phases of design is one important aspect that needs to be improved. We are currently combining this idea with principles from concurrent engineering to develop design aids which permits designers to compare their products to “Remanufacturable Product Profiles”. However, conscious those EoL solutions often involve several strategies; it is now envisaged to develop tools to help designers make optimal decisions while designing a product considering 3R strategies: Reuse, Remanufacture and Recycle. In this paper, our vision of why and how to integrate EoL strategies in the early design phases is presented, and what tools to apply 3R strategies are envisaged, considering the evolving architecture of the product, and the translation of transversal information into design criteria.     

Utilisation options of renewable resources: a life cycle assessment of selected products

Renewable resources have increasingly drawn the attention of agriculture, industry and politics. Their utilisation is considered to lead to ecological advantages compared to fossil resources and products. They, however, also come with ecological disadvantages, particularly due to intensive land use.In this paper, the environmental impacts of some utilisation options of Miscanthus and corn to produce energy and products are determined by life cycle assessment. The following life cycle comparisons were performed: (1) insulation material from Miscanthus vs. mineral wool; (2) Miscanthus as solid fuel vs. conventional energy carriers; (3) PLA drinking cups from corn vs. polystyrene drinking cups and (4) ethanol from corn vs. gasoline. The results of the comparisons between these products from renewable resources and their conventional counterparts do not support a clear-cut decision making in favour of or against products from renewable resources.     

Effects of regulatory uncertainty on corporate strategy—an analysis of firms’ responses to uncertainty about post-Kyoto policy

A better understanding of corporate strategy under regulatory uncertainty enables policy makers to improve policy making efficiency and enhance regulations’ effectiveness. Based on a review of the literature on policy formulation, we propose that regulatory uncertainty is characterized by a dependence on political negotiation, a discrete scenario structure, and a discontinuous resolution. Data from a worldwide survey show that firms pursue response strategies to regulatory uncertainty that address these characteristics by participating in policy making and increasing strategic flexibility. Surprisingly, the results also show that regulatory uncertainty only partly causes firms to postpone strategic decisions. We find that existing regulation and a need to act quickly despite regulatory uncertainty are opposed to the pursuit of a postponement strategy. We conclude that improving the mechanisms by which firms participate in early stages of the policy making process could enable them to operate in a more target-oriented manner, allow for more efficient policy implementation, and increase a regulation's effectiveness.     

A method for sustainable product development based on a modular system of guiding questions

In this paper, we present a method for sustainable product development (MSPD) with the aim of integrating social and ecological aspects of sustainability with a strategic business perspective in product development. The method applies backcasting from basic principles for sustainability, which allows a strategic approach, and it includes a modular system of guiding questions that are derived by considering these principles and the product life cycle. Initial testing in Swedish companies indicates that the suggested MSPD promotes a ‘bird's eye’ perspective and encourages and aids development of products that support society's transformation towards sustainability. Furthermore, it is concluded that the modular system provides flexibility and user-friendliness.     

Reformulation of matrix-based LCI: from product balance to process balance

A recent paper in this journal points out that the ISO standards for LCA ignore the situation of internally recurring unit process in life cycle inventories. The paper also presents a way to solve this problem, using a set of simultaneous equations with one equation for each unit process and one variable for each product. The authors appear to be unaware of existing approaches towards this problem in which a set of simultaneous equations is used, but with a reverse set-up: one equation for each product and one variable for each unit process. This paper reviews the existing literature and contrasts it with the newly proposed method. It is concluded that the presentation of the new method is unclear in certain parts, and that its realm of application is probably restricted to product systems with mono-functional processes.     

以晶体硅太阳能电池产业为例的产业生命周期评价初探

面对日益复杂的环境问题和精细化环境管理需求,为了将生命周期评价在产业结构调整、发展方式转变中更好地发挥作用,对在产业层面开展生命周期评价的方法进行了探索研究.产业生命周期评价是在产品生命周期评价的基础上增加了:①基于“可拆解可组合”生态设计理念的功能单位和系统边界确定;②质量评估和数据整合的数据收集过程;③以不确定性分析来验证数据的合理性.选择晶体硅太阳能电池产业进行了产业生命周期评价的案例应用.结果表明:晶体硅太阳能电池产业可分为4个产品单元和11个工艺单元.基于上述产品单元和工艺单元的资源能源投入和污染物排放数据进行收集,在数据质量评估之后通过数据整合形成了产业生命周期数据清单.产业生命周期环境影响主要集中在呼吸系统影响（41.94%）、化石燃料（25.20%）、致癌（14.89%）和气候变化（8.80%）4个环境影响类别;减少环境影响的精准化途径是减少高纯多晶硅、硅片、电池片产品的电耗,组件产品中焊带消耗,硅片产品中的砂浆消耗和组件产品的铝合金边框消耗.蒙特卡洛分析结果显示,高纯多晶硅生命周期评价结果不确定性较高,与数据质量评估的结果较为一致.案例应用结果说明,产品生命周期评价可将生命周期评价从产品层面提升到产业层面,可为国家产业发展提供科学支撑.      

Development of environmental performance indicators for textile process and product

The increasing demand for environmental performance evaluation of industry requires development of sector-specific environmental performance indicators (EPIs). For the consumer product manufacturing industry, in this case the textile industry, the need to evaluate environmental performance both from process and product life cycle perspectives leads to development of EPIs of process and product dimensions. Such types of EPIs have been developed, with best achievable values being identified, by this study for cotton woven products and wet processing. An in-depth discussion has been presented concerning problems in developing and applying EPIs, while areas for further research are also recommended.     

The role and implementation of LCA within life cycle management at Alcan

Life cycle management (LCM) aims at expanding the scope of the environmental management system of a company to address the up- and downstream impacts associated with the activities of its suppliers and customers. It is based on a perspective that focuses on products and the corresponding processes in addition to facilities and production sites. Therefore, the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology plays a central role in implementing LCM. At Alcan, one of the world's leading producers of aluminum materials and products, as well as composite components and packaging solutions, LCA as a core element of LCM is being used for a variety of applications. In order to achieve the objectives of LCM and to ensure efficient decision support, the LCAs are performed in a simplified mode. Simplifications predominantly concern up- and downstream processes outside of Alcan's direct control as well as impact assessment procedures, the reuse of internal life cycle inventory analysis modules, and the aggregation and presentation of the results for top-management and other internal decision-makers. A recently completed LCA from the automotive sector demonstrates the ongoing implementation of LCA at Alcan.     

电子废弃物物流及责任方安全职责分析

电子废弃物回收再利用属于逆向物流。阐述了我国电子废弃物物流的特点和模式,系统分析了电子废弃物物流框架,重点阐明在电子废弃物回收再利用中各责任方的安全职责：电子产品生产者具有全面责任;消费者具有经济责任和物质责任;政府管理部门具有宏观调控和监督协调责任;物流方有微观控制和安全保管的责任。     

The Automobile Industry & Sustainability

This paper summarises the contributions made to the special issue on The automobile Industry & Sustainability. Taking a life-cycle perspective, the contributions are allocated into the automotive life-cycle phases of design, manufacture (and supply chain management), use, and disposal or ‘end of life vehicle’ management. The contributions are also set into the broader context of research into the global automotive industry, and the economic, social and environmental pressures confronting the industry. In doing so, this introductory paper provides a brief assessment of the ways in which the papers in the special issue have furthered our understanding of the difficulty in achieving a sustainable automotive industry, and some of the measures that might be taken as progress towards that difficult goal.     

The application of life cycle assessment to design

This paper explores the practical application of life cycle assessment (LCA) to product system development. While life cycle assessment methods have been studied and demonstrated extensively over the last two decades, their application to product design and development has not been critically addressed. Many organizational and operational factors limit the integration of the three LCA components (inventory analysis, impact assessment and improvement assessment) with product development. Design of the product system can be considered a synthesis of individual decisions and choices made by the design team, which ultimately shape the system's environmental profile. The environmental goal of life cycle design is to minimize the aggregate environmental impacts associated with the product system. Appropriate environmental information must be supplied to decision makers throughout each stage of the development process to achieve this goal. LCA can serve as a source of this information, but informational requirements can vary as the design moves from its conceptual phase, where many design choices are possible, to its detailed design and implementation. Streamlined approaches and other tools, such as design checklists, are essential. The practical use of this tool in product development also depends on the nature and complexity of the product system (e.g. new vs. established), the product development cycle (time-to-market constraints), availability of technical and financial resources, and the design approach (integrated vs. serial). These factors will influence the role and scope of LCA in product development. Effective communication and evaluation of environmental information and the integration of this information with cost, performance, cultural and legal criteria will also be critical to the success of design initiatives based on the life cycle framework. An overview of several of these design initiatives will be presented.