Remanufacturing, a Global Initiative

Transcription

1 Remanufacturing, a Global Initiative Dr. Nabil Nasr, Associate Provost and Director Golisano Institute of Sustainability, Rochester Institute of Technology Could you compare the current states of the circular economy and remanufacturing in China and America? The circular economy concept is fairly a new concept that is gaining a lot of attention in Europe and Asia. However, the technologies and practices of the circular economy have been around for years. The U.S. has a longer history of development of these technologies than China; however, China is making rapid advances in development and implementations. Remanufacturing is a key enabler of the circular economy; it is also a good way of measuring progress toward implementation of the circular economy. The remanufacturing industry has been around in the United States for a very long time. Historically, the first industrialist to see the enormous potential of remanufacturing was Henry Ford. He looked at the Ford car s engine and realized its huge residual value; so he decided to establish a factory to remanufacture that engine. That was back in the 1930 s. While Henry Ford was not the very first to introduce remanufacturing in the U.S., he was a pioneer in developing large-scale remanufacturing. Remanufacturing in other industry sectors in the U.S. has also evolved over the years until today America leads the world in the number of reman companies and the amount of remanufacturing output. Along the way remanufacturers learned something I think is difficult for many other industry people to grasp: the model for remanufacturing is actually complex. For example, in certain countries that want to start a reman industry and have organized sectors, a lot of repair work typically can conflict with their remanufacturing initiatives. I think remanufacturing in China is evolving and has tremendous potential. However, there are still a lot of barriers relating to definitions of reman, customs rules and industry regulations that must be overcome. Am I right in understanding that remanufacturing still does not enjoy wide recognition and you still need to convince some people about the value of remanufacturing in the U.S.? 1

2 I think awareness of remanufacturing in the U.S. depends on industry sector. Remanufacturing in the U.S. is over 80 years old in some sectors, and brand new in other sectors, and doesn t exist in certain sectors. So depending on the sector and depending on who is remanufacturing the product, you will see varying levels of acceptance and varying levels of challenges having to do with market perspective. In general, remanufactured products in the U.S. don t face regulatory barriers. In fact, in some sectors we see that there is limited preferential treatment for remanufactured products. That s an interesting point because lots of people in China are worried that perhaps Chinese consumers won t or would be slightly resistant to remanufactured products say in cars. Do you think that s true? Do you think Chinese consumers might be convinced to use remanufactured products and do you think American consumers are more open to remanufactured parts in their cars? In the U.S., in the aftermarket service parts, there are certain electrical systems in cars today where 90% of the parts in the market, and the parts actually used in service, are remanufactured. If anyone has a problem with a certain part within the warranty period of a vehicle, typically the only economical option is remanufactured parts. Remanufactured parts typically have the same life cycle, quality, and performance as new parts. Once consumers are aware of this and see the performance of these products, there would definitely be wider acceptance of remanufactured products. American consumers are more open to using remanufactured products because they typically have the assurance of product performance through warranties or because they have had positive experience using remanufactured products in the past. We typically see some level of resistant to accepting remanufactured products in countries where availability of remanufactured products is new. There needs to be some level of educating consumers of the true facts related to remanufacturing, particularly the fact that, besides the significant cost saving, remanufactured products perform the same function as new product. The environmental advantage of remanufactured products can also be appealing to consumers. Could you elaborate on some of these challenges? The automotive industry does not remanufacture entire vehicles; what does get remanufactured are components, and typically a lot of those components are service components: starters, alternators, and brake systems. In other industry sectors, where an entire product may be remanufactured, you would see a very different model; so the role of remanufacturing in many of those industries is providing service products. The challenge in new markets for remanufacturing products is building consumer confidence and the infrastructure needed to support the remanufacturing sector. Another challenge is having a supportive regulatory structure that allows remanufacturing to exist. While remanufacturing is seen as a key enabler for the circular economy, in many countries we still see significant barriers and obstacles to treating remanufactured products the same way as new products. That makes a lot of sense. Could you briefly outline the role of the Golisano Institute of Sustainability (GIS) and what role it plays in the remanufacturing industry? The Golisano Institute is an academic part of the Rochester Institute of Technology; but GIS also conducts 2

3 applied research. Research in reman is conducted by GIS Center for Remanufacturing and Resource Recovery (C3R ). C3R started in the remanufacturing industry 25 years ago, and continues to be the only remanufacturing research institute in the U.S. that works very closely with the industry and government. Over 100 full-time research staff people perform a lot of this work. We do use students and faculty members to some extent, but most of the work is done by our dedicated professional research group. They actually participate in designing new products, developing remanufacturing methods, and even setting up factories for remanufacturing so we ve been providing technical assistance to the industry for many years. C3R has two demonstration facilities equipped with all the key technology elements, so we re able to work with the reman industry in validating the different technologies and effectiveness of remanufacturing and demonstrating some capabilities of new technology. For example, we re setting up a laboratory in the remanufacturing area it s a $3 million USD investment to develop a better understanding of the role of 3D printing using metals and other advanced technologies for the reman industry. We ve also worked with South Korea, Singapore and many other countries, helping them in their own journey of discovering remanufacturing and helping them resolve issues ranging from technology to regulation and policy. Could you tell me about how you became involved in the remanufacturing industry? I became involved in remanufacturing accidentally. When I was getting my Ph.D., I started a company where I designed manufacturing facilities, and I worked in 5 states in the U.S. designing manufacturing systems and manufacturing facilities. One of the projects I was involved with had a small but very effective remanufacturing operation; however, outside of the reman group, very few people at the company actually understood it. When I designed the facility, this remanufacturing group complained, saying I was treating them like a standard manufacturing group while their operation is different. So I decided to take a week off my work just to focus on observing their production line and learning about the process. It was fascinating to discover that there s such a wonderful process that is very high in margin and that the technology exists that can actually validate conditions of components so we can use them multiple times. As an engineer, I was intrigued and decided it was something worth looking into more. Luckily after that I became involved with Xerox, which at the time was debating the fate of its own remanufacturing operation. For me, it was fantastic to discover that remanufacturing was extremely effective in other products such as copier toner cartridges and many other what were called replaceable units. At the time, the prevailing wisdom about remanufacturing was that it s only effective when you re doing it for durable goods, and obviously a toner cartridge doesn t qualify as this; but we discovered that cartridges have very high margins and the volume was high. So I was deeply involved in the early work in this area of remanufacturing, and from there I got involved in work in other kinds of reman. My main focus for research was working with the U.S. government. The U.S. military is the largest remanufacturing entity in the world. I worked with the U.S. government, developing technology for remanufacturing. Then we held a meeting in Rochester, New York (where I currently reside) and established the Remanufacturing Council. I chaired the council for 11 years and we developed strong connections with the industry and created a road map for technology and trade barriers and that became basically my main focus. 3

4 You mentioned working with the military; what military applications does remanufacturing have? Just about everything in the military gets remanufactured, from navy ships to aircraft to tanks to tactical vehicles. For example the B-52 bomber will be in service for around 90 years, which implies that there will be many cycles of remanufacturing during the life cycle of that aircraft. What issues are you focusing on in your research now? Could you elaborate on any ongoing or recently completed projects? Our scope is international, so we work with companies and organizations around the world and in many industry sectors. There are a lot of interesting differences that you see as you work in the different sectors of remanufacturing. Some sectors are very advanced in certain technology areas, while other sectors are just beginning to explore the same technology. A lot of our projects today are related to electronics, particularly the true determination of the residual life of electronic models. We do much work involving signature analysis to determine the remaining life and the actual condition of an electronic module. That s been a big challenge for the industry; in many cases it s not done properly, and so GIS is trying to develop the science behind it. There are other issues for lower-volume parts with high complexity, especially developing replacements for these parts. That s why we re exploring metal-based 3-D printing technology and looking into its accuracy, cost, and efficiency to see if it s a viable option and under what conditions it would be workable. I have also worked with several large companies investigating surface cleaning. Here, people typically have a solution that works, but we discover that some of these solutions are not necessarily optimal with regards to waste generation, the chemistry used, and the hazardous materials generated in the surface cleaning area. We are developing technology with green chemistry to create a surface cleaning process that is cost effective, cleans well and doesn t result in hazardous material left over that would threaten the health and safety of people working in the operation. RIT s Center for Remanufacturing and Resource Recovery is doing most of its work in intelligent systems. When I speak around the world about remanufacturing and about the changes we re seeing in remanufacturing, one thing I always discuss is the future of remanufacturing and how we ll do things very differently than today. I recently gave a public lecture in Singapore on the future of remanufacturing in which I called for a much more intelligent system to determine the condition of a product far more effectively and confidently, and how we will be able to use this information to ensure we have the best way to remanufacture the product. I think you touched on it just now, what do sustainable design and lifecycle engineering mean and how can these ideas be applied to remanufacturing? Sustainable design and lifecycle engineering are tools we can use to help tackle the environmental challenges related to production society faces. The biggest challenge is realizing that consumption and 4

5 production are the major areas of concern that must be addressed because they relate to all of the environmental problems you hear about, such as climate change, material depletion, and other issues. Consumption and production have to be confronted; and sustainable design is an effective way to look at the design of manufactured products and ensure that we re designing them with the impact of the product in mind throughout all of its life-cycle phases from material extraction all the way to disposal or recycle and remanufacturing. The goal of sustainable design is to have a production system that is non-polluting and results in less resource consumption, less energy consumption, and is cleaner to the employees as well as the people living around the facilities. In sustainable design we must be sure we have a full understanding of the entire product and follow a more holistic approach. The design phase is where we have the most influence that the product doesn t cause problems down the road. Life cycle engineering gives us the methodology to develop systematic approaches and tools that enable us to account for all of a product s life-cycle phases and ensure that the product is designed based on what we would like to see happen to it. Could you name any successful cases of this? There are wonderful examples of this holistic design approach that resulted in products that are different than their previous generation, products that are more economical, cleaner in terms of the processes that produce them and are better for the consumer. For example, Steelcase chairs are designed with sustainable design approaches that save a lot of material that was typically used to make the cushions. Steelcase designed a chair that s much more elegant than its predecessor but achieves the same basic functional requirements and reduces material consumption by a huge percentage. The chair s components can be replaced if they break, so the product has a longer life cycle, and it is designed to be easy to disassemble at the product s end of life in order to reclaim materials. Could you comment on the current trends and developments in research for the reman industry? Is it possible to say which is closest to being ready for industrial application? The biggest challenge facing the remanufacturing industry is that most of the research being done by industry is short term. Industry is not making major investments to look for transformational type technologies. Most of the technology is used to solve short-term problems. On the academic side, I think one of the challenges we face is that the huge disconnect between academic research and the remanufacturing industry s true needs. Most academic research is done in isolation from the real conditions and the real challenges. As a result, we don t get the benefits of some of this work because it typically doesn t address some of the real challenges. In response, C3R is helping host the Third Annual World Remanufacturing Summit on September 25 th -26 th ; through this event we are trying to bring together the research communities from the academic side and the industrial world to try to bridge that gap. It can be done. My group, for example, has a strong connection with the reman industry and all of our research is done in collaboration with the industry and with industry sponsorship. That s a good way to ensure that all the work that s done addresses real-world situations. 5

6 Another challenge in remanufacturing is that all of its problems look simple when you view them from the outside. Once you actually get into some of these areas you discover how complex the system really is. As a result, we see a lot of work that starts with good intentions but ends up with an oversimplification of some of the problems. We think that R&D in remanufacturing needs a lot of work and we need to bring many more researchers and academics into the world of reman. At the same time, it s very important that we re calibrating their work, that their research truly relates to a problem that we consider to be a significant issue in the remanufacturing world. Is the Golisano Institute cooperating with any enterprises or agencies in the reman industry? GIS is an autonomous organization within the Rochester Institute of Technology, so C3R can work closely with all the remanufacturing organizations in the U.S. For example, for over 15 years I have been on the board of directors of the International Imaging Technology Council, an organization that represents the imaging industry (including copiers, scanners, photo cartridges etc.). We work with innovations relating to defense equipment and with the group that remanufactures office furniture, compressors, and electrical apparatuses. We also work on the policy side by providing scientific analysis related to remanufacturing issues. For more than a year I ve also been involved with the United Nations environmental program and the UN s International Resource Panel trying to shed light on remanufacturing and develop unified definitions of reman. In addition to academic research, we advise on trade policy, standards and definitions. A lot of our work is in many Asian and South American countries trying to help government organizations comprehend remanufacturing and develop the infrastructure needed to support their own remanufacturing sector. It s great to hear about your work with governments in Asia. I wonder, could you elaborate on your connection to the reman industry in Asia? Remanufacturing in Asia faces many challenges. One of the most frustrating I ve encountered there is a lack of understanding of the true nature and value of remanufacturing. I have experienced many cases where one government entity has been successfully educated in the meaning and value of remanufacturing and then I discovered that there are many other government organizations in the same country that still don t treat remanufacturing fairly and don t understand its value. I think we need to do a lot of raising awareness, explaining what remanufacturing is, and providing guidance to ensure that there is a fair treatment of reman in these countries. Could you offer any predictions for how the situation might change in Asia? Do you think these governments might be won over? I don t believe that this is a long-term issue for Asian nations. I think the burden is on both sides; the reman industry and the governments need to make sure that governments and consumers reach a good level of understanding of remanufacturing. The key here is that all the reports done on a global level looking at material flow and material availability show that material challenges will be a significant problem in the future for any industrialized entity that wants to sustain their enterprise. Remanufacturing is an outstanding way to bring products back, recycle their materials and basically close the loop; it is also 6

7 a much more economical way to address this than any alternative. Sooner or later you will see a huge realization of the role and value of remanufacturing. In Singapore this has already happened. Singapore s government is very enlightened and the country is already doing very well in this area by providing incentives for companies to remanufacture in Singapore. The Singapore government has done their homework, realized the importance of reman in their society, and has provided significant assistance. In the rest of Asia, the question is how long it will be before that kind of realization occurs? I think it s just a matter of time. Direct government support may, or may not, be the key. After all, remanufacturing in the U.S. has never received subsidies from the Federal government. We re responsible for diverting hundreds of tons of waste going to landfill, we re responsible for recycling significant volume of material in the U.S., yet we ve never received subsidies from Washington. Remanufacturing is responsible for a very high level of employment as a sector here in the U.S. it s a win-win situation. All remanufacturers need is to level the playing field and have their product treated as any other manufactured product! In any case, we have to continue to educate the policy makers to ensure that we re making progress on all different fronts; otherwise we ll keep encountering barriers to remanufacturing. We confront these barriers in many Asian countries. I think that China is seen as a role model for many countries in Asia, so any progress in remanufacturing that we make in China is going to be paralleled in other Asian countries. Dr. Nasr this has been so informative and a pleasure speaking with you. 7