Background

Abstract

Part B of the book starts with a summary of the state of Ecodesign knowledge and connects it with know-how about refurbishment/recycling. For a reader this information should be helpful to understand the major principles of Ecodesign and why it is a win–win situation for both the reuser and the refurbishing company, and also for a producer of a new product if the manufacturer combines new and as-new components. As the development of Ecodesign rules for a HW product is now more than 20 years old the focus wasn’t directed to the still evolving aspect of SW all factors were concentrated on the reuse of parts and materials. Now that SW techniques are more sophisticated, it is the SW which becomes a more and more important part, but always in combination with HW.

Key Points, Exercises, Recommended Further Reading, References/Websites

1.1 (1. Preconditions) Key Points

• The validity of the bathtub curve of failures is a technical precondition for reuse. This curve determines the residual life of a component. Whether a component might be reused depends on the technological state of the product or of the component, the structure of the product including easy disassembly, testability, upgradeability, value and potential benefit and many other factors affect the decision about the reuse of a component or product.

• Economic reasons for reuse consist of the whole market situation in competition, legal acceptance, enough volume of take back and production. Value-add for components on average can be estimated to be in the range of 30–40%. Costs occur for testing, buy back, cleaning or refurbishment.

• Environmental requirements are laid down in laws or standards and demand high take back and recovery quotas, especially in Europe, including for reuse. Also over the life cycle reuse reduces the environmental impact, for example by the use of less resources such as materials or energy.

• The role of SW becomes more and more important the more components use and reuse SW. SW reuse might keep legacy SW alive in the form of reusable building blocks. But the SW compatibility with the overall SW of the product must be guaranteed before reuse. Also different HW types might not fit with the same SW.

• HW components require more and more SW. For the purpose of reuse in a used or a new product, maybe as part of a production line or for repair, HW and SW have to be qualified both. As not only new SW might be used a repository of qualified SW might be built up. Especially in complex HW systems SW could meet programming language challenges, different SW levels or different product configurations.

• For qualification of a component as-new not only the HW but also the SW state has to be checked and may be upgraded. Not only for a state as-new but for reuse in general, for example in expensive capital goods like in defense projects, also legacy systems could be combined during a new development project. This will be a challenge for HW and SW experts.

1.2 Exercises

• (1) Which components could be reused without further testing only after visual inspection? Use own experience. Please name some components and explain why you have selected them.

• (2) Which environmental reasons could occur such that components, for example of a mobile phone, should not be reused? Why is material recovery interesting for mobile phones? Mention some reasons.

• (3) How could an average of 5% reuse of components or products be achieved if the useful life of a product is 5 years and the sales of the same kind of new products ends after 6 years. Make some assumptions and discuss some possibilities.

• (4) Search in the internet about remanufacturing, reuse and read some case studies about successful reuse of products by companies. How many different industry branches do you find which already apply reuse/remanufacturing? Which ones concentrate on as-new components?

• (5) Mention some SW problems that could occur with components after take back and before the components are newly integrated into a new product or system?

• (6) Will it be always sufficient to exchange the old SW for the SW of the latest state if a product or component is remanufactured? Explain some problems.

1.3 Recommended Further Reading

In [3] find case study about X ray tube, testing.

Case studies of reuse or remanufacturing, for example on the homepage of the European Recycling Network (ERN) https://www.remanufacturing.eu.

Study about potential remanufacturing of household equipment in the US:

A. Bustani, S. Sahni, T. Gutowski, S. Graves, Appliance remanufacturing and energy savings, Environmentally Benign Manufacturing Laboratory, 28 Jan 2010, MITI-1-a-2010, Sloan School of Management: web.unit.edu/ebm/www/Publications/Mitei-1-a-2010.pdf.

1.4 References/Websites

Referred literature: [1, 3, 5, 26, 45, 46, 57].

Webpages of the European union about reuse: for example.

• www.ReBorn-en-project.org (about plants equipment to be reused).

• www.ewwr.eu/en/project/mainfeatures.

• www.ewwr.eu/docs/ewwr/reuse_RREUSE.pdf (more general about reuse).

• The European Remanufacturing Network (https://www.remanufacturing.eu) includes business models, examples and case studies.

• Study: Ecodesign and Energy label revision: Household Washing machines and washer-dryers: http://susproc.jrc.ec.europa.eu/Washing_machines_and_washer_dryers/index.html.

1.5 (2. Concepts) Key Points

• The QAGAN state of a component is an artificial word for the state ‘as-new’ after repair or refurbishment of a component. It is defined in IEC 62309. Such components should be used in new products together with the new components.

• “New” means now the product is newly manufactured and all components are new or like new. They do not differ in useful lifetime or quality but are cheaper than products with absolutely new components.

• Potential customers must be informed about the state of the product which they want to buy.

• In addition to IEC 62309 the SW quality also has to be checked and has to match the state of a new component if not differently required. Also the SW might be reused.

• The state of the component as-new includes now the up-to-date SW.

• Other approaches for reuse or remanufacturing have less strict requirements or work differently. For example, a system for the life time extension of a PC was built up, which is designed for upgrading to keep its state always at the latest version. Customers are much more involved in keeping in touch with the manufacturer.

1.6 Exercises

• (1) What could be a real difference between absolutely new and the QAGAN state? Give some examples.

• (2) Which problems could occur to name a complete reused product, not only components, to become QAGAN?

• (3) Try to create a similar (and not really existing) system as in [5] for a cellular phone. Take the examples from [58] (to be downloaded from www.iameco.com) and explain what you would do to get a similar system. Some ideas will be sufficient for the beginning.

1.7 Recommended Further Reading [3]

Examples from Siemens Healthineers Refurbished Systems for medical equipment: https://www.healthcare.siemens.de/refurbished-systems.

Other strategies for an upgradeable PC see examples from: www.iameco.com.

Environmentally better compatible phone: fairphone. https://www.fairphone.com/.

1.8 References/Websites [6, 55, 58]

New PC with extended lifetime:www.iameco.com www.micropro.ie.

1.9 (3. Integration) Key Points

• A take back system for capital goods requires planning of the logistics of products and components to get them completely back into the factory. After refurbishment they could get new designed lives in new products.

• For consumer products this way seems to be difficult because they are often damaged and real waste. In this case a much longer working life could be designed with upgradeability by the customer. Also take back could be organized which is different to the actual situation.

1.10 Exercises

• (1) The iameco PC has an NDL three times longer than for a conventional PC. Why could it not be dealt with like other products in Fig. 6.5?

  Fig. 6.5

  

  Material flows from supplier to customer until recovery (disposal) according to [3]

  Fig. 6.6

  

  Repeated life cycles of used QAGAN components according to IEC 62309. Legend: NDL: New designed life; ANDL: As-new designed life

• (2) What could a process look like if mainly wood is used and incineration of the material should not be the next step after take back?

• (3) How a manufacturer can save money if a cycle like that in Fig. 6.6 is installed?

1.11 Recommended Further Reading [3]

Examples for different company rules for ecodesign, take back systems in: Goodship, V., A. Stevels, WEEE Handbook, Woodhead Publishing, Philadephia 2012 ISBN 978–0-85,709–089-8.

Recommendations for refurbishment, industrial standard with international reputation: Good refurbishment practice for Medical equipment: http://www.cocir.org.

1.12 References/Websites [3]

http://www.reborn-eu-project.org/downloads.html.

1.13 (4. Selection) Key Points

Components to be qualified run through several processes.

• System selection for refurbishment,

• De-installation, packaging and transport,

• Refurbishment, remanufacturing,

• Re-installation,

• Professional service.

In the beginning the state of the system will be checked, including the SW. Decisions are taken about what should happen with the system. If accepted for reuse (in total or parts of it) it is sent back to the factory, where refurbishment is done (disassembly, cleaning, restoration, repair, qualification or testing). Afterwards, resale as a certified product or re-installation with a new customer are the next steps. Service for a new life starts. In other cases when it is pure waste, it might directly be sent to a material recycler for recovery. All processes are in detail special for the kind of products involved.

• Depending on the requirements of the product, like hygienic cleaning for medical equipment, a special program must be developed to achieve the state as-new or a similar qualified one. An extra focus has to be set to the SW state and its update.

• Checks of dependability and testing are required, they differ also for different components and products corresponding to the test of new components.

1.14 Exercises

• (1) Why are often only capital goods treated like the examples given and usually not consumer products, even though they are often sold in a much higher degree? Give some reasons.

• (2) In which phases of take back till resale must the SW state be checked, and what has to be documented for SW, after a product was sold to enable better take back at the end-of-life?

1.15 Recommended Further Reading

See [3] for the recommended refurbishment processes according to IEC 62309.

A study from the European Commission for remanufacturing of household equipment ([70] http://susproc.jrc.ec.europa.eu/Washing_machines_and_washer_dryers/docs/Prepstudy_WASH_20150601_FINAL_v2.pdf) shows chances for future potential refurbishment of consumer products.

The potential for reuse of household equipment is presented for the US market in the study from.

Boustani, A., Sahni, S., Gutowski, T., Graves,S., Appliance Remanufacturing and Energy Savings, January 28, 2010, Environmentally Benign Manufacturing Laboratory, Sloan School of Management, MITI-1-a-2010, web.unit.edu/ebm/www/Publications/Mitei-1-a-2010.pdf.

For benefits, strategies for reuse processes see: Wimmer, W., Lee, K.M., Polak, J., Quella, F., Ecodesign - The competitive advantage, Dordrecht/Netherlands et al., Springer 2010, ISBN 978–90-481–9126-0.

1.16 References/Websites [8, 9]

COCIR industry standard: Good refurbishment practice (both see: www.cocir.org).

1.17 (5. New vs. Refurbished) Key Points

• Declarations about the state of a reused product or a new product with reused QAGAN components are required in combination with the sales of a product.

• CE marking is only required if the product is newly put on the market. This label guarantees to comply with all relevant EU legislation.

• Anyway a good set of documentation for the customer and a warranty create confidence with the customer.

1.18 Exercises

• (1) What does it mean about the legislation to be fulfilled if a product is as-new refurbished and should be resold? Mention some differences between a new product and a repaired used product, for example for legal requirements.

• (2) Define those requirements and standards which have to be applied to put the CE-mark on the product. When it will not be required to fix a CE-mark on the product?

1.19 Recommended Further Reading [3]

See section XII in this book about standards. A comparison of IEC 62309 with other standards gives insight into different reuse philosophies.

1.20 References/Websites [3, 55, 58, 65–67]

CE mark: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/ce-marking_en.

ANSI/RIC 2015 (001.12016): Specifications for the process of remanufacturing http://www.remancouncil.org/files/5fdeCD/RIC2015-Specifications-for-the-Process-of-Remanufacturing-Draft-11-25-151.pdf, Remanufacturing Industries Council, 1335 Jefferson Road #20,157, Rochester, NY 14,602–0157.