Despite remanufacturing being a value-retention process capable of bringing both economic and environmental benefits to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), the remanufacturing market is small, and the OEM share on the market is even smaller. There are trends in OEMs hesitating to initiate remanufacturing due to the lack of knowledge or often unjustified assumptions about how remanufacturing affects their business-as-usual. To further motivate OEMs to initiate remanufacturing, there is a need to extend the remanufacturing initiation theory to showcase how remanufacturing could be initiated in practice. Therefore, this paper aims to describe a remanufacturing initiation and demonstrate the initiation steps for OEMs by developing a remanufacturing initiation framework. The framework is developed based on a remanufacturing initiation led by an OEM of robotic lawn mowers. Based on the case study, a 5-step approach for initiating remanufacturing (5AFIR) framework—the remanufacturing sapphire—was developed to interpret and visualise the remanufacturing approach taken at the studied OEM. The framework steps consist of the following: (1) Select a product family, (2) involve actors prone to be impacted by remanufacturing, (3) iteratively identify prerequisites and assess the system performance, (4) develop a plan and industrialise remanufacturing, and (5) refine and validate the assessment in Step 3.

Originating from years of economic instability, a recent positive development of the Cambodian economy is leading to a rising number of registered vehicles, mainly motorcycles. With this rise, the demand for spare parts is also increasing significantly. Differing from other countries, where a share of the spare parts is covered by remanufactured parts, there is no remanufacturing alternative to new parts available in Cambodia. As such, little is known about the Cambodian remanufacturing market. Therefore, this research aims to explore the awareness of motorcycle users in Cambodia of remanufactured parts as an alternative to new spare parts. To fulfil the aim, data from 491 Cambodian motorcycle users were collected and analyzed through structured interviews and online surveys. The main findings conclude that a vast majority of the Cambodian motorcycle users are aware of the remanufacturing alternatives to new spare parts but in many cases the perception is negative, and the new parts are seen as superior to remanufactured parts.

Original equipment manufacturers are increasingly investigating their possibilities to sell their products as a service. In order to achieve higher customer satisfaction and stronger relationship with their customers, the household appliance manufacturer Electrolux is planning to offer their products as a service. There are several ways to tackle this challenge, from having a janitor repair household appliances on-site to sending rotation units for remanufacturing. This paper aims to design a scalable concept for a repair workshop for household appliances that could, in an efficient manner, sell household appliances as a service for several residential areas.

In order to fulfill the aim of this paper, empirical data was collected through interviews with people from industry and academia as well as observations from workshops. The research results present two different concept proposals, where one of the concepts treats how a repair workshop layout could look for the residential area of Rissne and the other concept how a scaled-up repair business for household appliances as a service might look. When upscaling of the repair business takes place, remanufacturing may be relevant for an additional sustainable business.

Remanufacturing is a value retention process (VRP), along with direct reuse, repair, and comprehensive refurbishment, which prepares the used product for new uses by controlling and recapturing its value through several industrial operations. Remanufacturing possesses significant financial, environmental, and societal opportunities, and some manufacturers tend to challenge their business models, production systems, products, logistics, and customer management to comply with a circular economy (CE). 

However, remanufacturing is sometimes undervalued and is ranked low, compared to other VRPs, among the recirculation processes (after-use-phase processes that bring and keep used products, their parts or material in a closed material loop through reuse, recycling, downcycling, and upcycling). The main reason for this is the greater number of resources required and fewer benefits provided compared to direct product reuse and repair. This paper studies a remanufacturer using different VRPs to satisfy customer needs and to better balance an incoming core (used product and its part) quality and the demanded product quality. 

The aim of this paper is to define remanufacturing value and better align remanufacturing in comparison to other recirculation processes. The data was collected through a literature study and interviews with an EEE remanufacturer to fulfill the aim of this paper. The literature study covered the previous knowledge on remanufacturing, VRPs and recirculation processes. The interviews with an EEE remanufacturer provided valuable input to the scope of the VRPs performed by a single remanufacturer.

Lean approaches the remanufacturing value from a customer perspective shifting the paradigm of VRP, where remanufacturing is ranked low. Remanufacturing tends to demand greater resources to save the product value and implies greater product intervention. However, the output quality assured with a longer warranty, new product identity and prolonged (doubled or tripled) product use phase overcomes the benefits associated with the other VRPs, when customer value is in focus. The analysis of the remanufacturing value in comparison to other recirculation processes elevates remanufacturing in a recirculation taxonomy for technical products. The assessment of social, environmental, and economic benefits with remanufacturing compliments the findings. The result of the study lays the foundation for the development of the “9R taxonomy” – a framework on recirculation processes for technical products, where six VRPs can be handled by a remanufacturer.

An integration of remanufacturing into an original equipment manufacturer’s (OEM) value chain can enhance circularity. In order to realize a transition towards circularity, it must be economically beneficial. This paper aims to compare and economically evaluate several remanufacturing scenarios with varied retailer involvement, to identify how an electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) manufacturer can perform remanufacturing profitably. To meet the aim of this paper, data was gathered through more than 50 semi-structured and unstructured interviews, including workshops with a robotic lawn mower manufacturer and eight of its retailers in Sweden, and through a literature review in the fields of remanufacturing, acquisition of cores (used products), and sales of remanufactured products. The scenarios consist of a decentralized, with minor or no involvement of an OEM, and six centralized, where an OEM manages remanufacturing. Here, looking at a case of the centralized scenario, the remanufacturing process is performed at the OEM manufacturing plant in a European low-wage country, while cores are acquired in Sweden. This research concludes that the OEM’s economic benefits are greater in remanufacturing scenarios with low involvement of retailers. However, succeeding with acquisition and sales without retailers requires establishing new retail channels, which also leads to uncertainties.

There is a continuous flow of new products put on the market by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). In order to retain value that is put into them during manufacturing these products can be remanufactured for economic, environmental and social reasons. This has beenthe case for many decades in industrial sectors, for example, the automotive industry. However, the automotive industry is currently changing much in recent years due to trends ofelectrification and servitization.Stable technology, high after-use value and replaceable parts are typical attributes of aproduct suitable for remanufacturing. In addition, if products are servitized e.g. through leasingor sharing there are additional economic reasons to remanufacture. However, all products andparts are not suitable for remanufacturing while other products and parts are more suitable forremanufacturing. In a remanufacturing of electric vehicles, the need to define a set of partssuitable for remanufacturing becomes crucial.The aim of this paper is to explore new ways of understanding which parts that should beselected for remanufacturing in the future automotive aftermarket. The research methodologyused to meet the aim of this paper is literature search and case studies at electric vehiclemanufacturers and remanufacturers based in Europe. During the case study data was collectedthrough observations, semi-structured interviews and disassembly activities along the productvalue chain of electric vehicles including manufacturers, dismantlers and remanufacturers.To define a set of parts for remanufacturing an assessment of the price and quantity of soldparts in an aftermarket, costs for remanufacturing process as well as the interdependency of theparts based on a product structure was accomplished. The results show that there are attributesderiving from the categories of economics, technology, and environment. This means in generalterms that the remanufacturing is profitable, technologically possible and sound from anenvironmental perspective. For the different product parts these attributes were differentlystrong and motivating the initiation to remanufacture.

Linear material flows dominate in the Swedish manufacturing industry, and knowledge on remanufacturing as a value-retention process remains limited. Today, only a limited amount of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) for consumer goods (that are acquired for personal use), such as laptops and mobile phones, are remanufactured in Sweden.

More support is needed to enhance the remanufacturization (a shift towards remanufacturing) of manufacturing industries by targeting manufacturers that have prerequisites and/or show interest in implementing remanufacturing on their products (later called developing remanufacturing industries). One way to support the developing remanufacturing industries could be by providing a tool to assesses manufacturers’ potential with remanufacturing. The aim of this paper is to introduce such a tool, called the RemometerTM, and to present this approach to measure a company’s remanufacturing readiness level (RRL). The data was collected through a literature study and semi-structured interviews to fulfill the aim of this paper. The authors’ research on lean remanufacturing, in collaboration with EEE, automotive, heavy equipment and machinery manufacturers, service/maintenance providers and retailers, laid the basis for developing the RemometerTM tool.  

By assessing 15 subjects shared between four critical to remanufacturing areas, namely, business model, production system, product and customer, manufacturers can measure their remanufacturing readiness level and a gap towards a world-class remanufacturer. However, neither RRL nor a gap is a purpose of the RemometerTM tool, but a useful measure to communicate to top managers on a manufacturer’s potential to become more circular through remanufacturing. RemometerTM is developed to support the remanufacturization of a Swedish EEE manufacturer of consumer goods and can be applied at other developing remanufacturing industries.

The consumption of resources is at an alarmingly high level, and there is a high need for resource-efficient alternatives to manufacturing. Remanufacturing is one way to reduce the use of both materials and energy, while still providing products with a like-new condition. This paper aims to define critical areas to assess when applying remanufacturing to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The research was conducted by interweaving remanufacturing’s role in a circular economy (CE) with a single case study at a robotic lawn mower OEM. The case study was split into three parts that separately investigated customer demand, product design and economic sustainability, respectively, all in the area of remanufacturing. This paper addressed the research gap in OEM strategy towards a CE with remanufacturing, defining five critical areas to assess when applying remanufacturing to OEMs: customer, product, sustainability (economic, environmental and social), business model, and production system. The findings of the paper could be useful for many OEMs willing to shift to a CE with remanufacturing.