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Sustainable Manufacturing for Thai Firms: A Case Study of Remanufactured Photocopiers

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Sustainable Design and Manufacturing 2017 (SDM 2017)

Part of the book series: Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies ((SIST,volume 68))

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Abstract

Remanufacturing represents a significant mean encouraging sustainability. This paper aims to investigate the critical factors influencing the decisions of firms to engage in remanufacturing through conducting a case study of Thai remanufactured photocopiers employing qualitative and quantitative approaches. The results show that business feasibility is the prominent determinant driving firms’ decisions, followed by firm’s strategic factors, and policy factors. Totally derived from the area of business feasibility, as the top four individual factors, financial aspects is ranked first as the most critical factor influencing remanufacturing, followed by availability of skilled workers, product maturity, and technical aspects. Firm-level characteristics matter significantly in ranking the factors. Concrete support by government towards implementing comprehensive policies is needed to strengthen remanufacturing development in Thailand.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    WEEE DIRECTIVE (2002/96/EC): Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment requires producers to manage post-consumer recycling and the disposal of electronic products effective August 13, 2005.

  2. 2.

    Remanufacturing firms in Thailand are defined using the broader term, comprising both remanufacturing and semi-remanufacturing [6, 7, 38].

  3. 3.

    Note that a post hoc analysis could not be performed to identify which couple of firm sizes is statistically significantly different because among the three groups the large-sized group comprised only one firm.

  4. 4.

    Small-scale enterprise has fewer than 50 employees and medium-scale enterprise has fewer than 200 employees and over of these is large-scale [39].

  5. 5.

    It is crucial to note that t-test could not performed for actors and ownerships because there is one group that is OEM and only one foreign-owned firm.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, Asian Institute of Technology, Pathumthani, Thailand

    Jirapan Chaowanapong

  2. Faculty of Economics, Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand

    Juthathip Jongwanich

Authors
  1. Jirapan Chaowanapong
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  2. Juthathip Jongwanich
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Correspondence to Jirapan Chaowanapong .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Giampaolo Campana

  2. Bournemouth University, Poole, Dorset, United Kingdom

    Robert J. Howlett

  3. Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom

    Rossi Setchi

  4. Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Barbara Cimatti

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Chaowanapong, J., Jongwanich, J. (2017). Sustainable Manufacturing for Thai Firms: A Case Study of Remanufactured Photocopiers. In: Campana, G., Howlett, R., Setchi, R., Cimatti, B. (eds) Sustainable Design and Manufacturing 2017. SDM 2017. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 68. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57078-5_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57078-5_24

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-57077-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-57078-5

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