Coping with disassembly yield uncertainty in remanufacturing using sensor embedded products

Ilgin Mehmet, Gupta, Nakashima, Nakashima Kenichi

Description

This paper proposes and investigates the use of embedding sensors in products when designing and manufacturing them to improve the efficiency during their end-of-life (EOL) processing. First, separate design of experiments studies based on orthogonal arrays are carried out for conventional products (CPs) and sensor embedded products (SEPs). In order to calculate the response values for each experiment, detailed discrete event simulation models of both cases are developed considering the precedence relationships among the components together with the routing of different appliance types through the disassembly line. Then, pair-wise t-tests are conducted to compare the two cases based on different performance measures. The results showed that sensor embedded products improve revenue and profit while achieving significant reductions in backorder, disassembly, disposal, holding, testing and transportation costs. While the paper addresses the EOL processing of dish washers and dryers, the approach provided could be extended to any other industrial product.

Sujets

• Design of experiments
• Cost-benefit analysis
• Discrete event simulation

Informations

• Publié par: biomed
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 9
• Langue: English

Extrait

Ilginet al.Journal of Remanufacturing2011,1:7 http://www.journalofremanufacturing.com/content/1/1/7

R E S E A R C HOpen Access Coping with disassembly yield uncertainty in remanufacturing using sensor embedded products 1* 23 Mehmet Ali Ilgin, Surendra M Guptaand Kenichi Nakashima

Abstract This paper proposes and investigates the use of embedding sensors in products when designing and manufacturing them to improve the efficiency during their endoflife (EOL) processing. First, separate design of experiments studies based on orthogonal arrays are carried out for conventional products (CPs) and sensor embedded products (SEPs). In order to calculate the response values for each experiment, detailed discrete event simulation models of both cases are developed considering the precedence relationships among the components together with the routing of different appliance types through the disassembly line. Then, pairwise ttests are conducted to compare the two cases based on different performance measures. The results showed that sensor embedded products improve revenue and profit while achieving significant reductions in backorder, disassembly, disposal, holding, testing and transportation costs. While the paper addresses the EOL processing of dish washers and dryers, the approach provided could be extended to any other industrial product. Keywords:disassembly line, experimental design, sensor embedded products, costbenefit analysis, discrete event simulation

1. Background Remanufacturing is an industrial process involving the conversion of used products into likenew condition. This process starts with the collection and transportation of EOL products to a remanufacturing plant where they are disassembled into parts. Following the cleaning and inspection of disassembled parts, repair and replacement operations are performed to deal with defective and worn out parts. Finally, all parts are reassembled into a rema nufactured product which is expected to function like a new product. In addition to repair and replacement, some parts or modules may also be upgraded while remanufac turing a product. New and stricter government regulations on EOL pro duct treatment and increasing public awareness towards environmental issues have forced many manufacturers to establish specific facilities for remanufacturing operations. Being the most environmentfriendly and profitable pro duct recovery option, remanufacturing has many advan tages over other recovery options such as recycling,

* Correspondence: [e-mail] 1 Department of Industrial Engineering, Dokuz Eylul University, Buca 35160, Izmir, Turkey Full list of author information is available at the end of the article

repairing or refurbishing. In remanufacturing, majority of labor, energy and material values embedded in an EOL product are recovered because the disassembled parts are used as is in the remanufacturing process. On the other hand, in recycling, only the material is recovered because the EOL products are simply shredded in a recycling facil ity. Remanufactured products provide superior perfor mance due to replacement of wornout parts and upgrading of some key parts. That is why many manufac turers are willing to give consumers the same warranty provisions as with the new products. Although replace ment of some parts may occur during the repair or refurb ishment option, there is no upgrading. Therefore repaired or refurbished products may not provide a superior per formance and their warranty provisions are inferior to those of the remanufactured or new products. Although remanufacturing is more sustainable than the traditional way of manufacturing where we only use vir gin materials to produce new products, it involves more uncertainty. In a traditional manufacturing system, there are strict requirements to be obeyed by suppliers regard ing the quality, quantity and arrival time of components. On the other hand, in remanufacturing, such strict requirements can not be imposed on the quality, quantity

© 2011 Ilgin et al; licensee Springer. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.