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PLM for Multiple Lifecycle Product
Concepts, terminologies, processes for collaborative information management
Xin Ye
Xintong Zhang
Supervisor: Dr. Amir Rashid - KTH
Torbjörn Holm - Eurostep
Master Thesis
KTH Royal Institute of Technology
School of Industrial Engineering and Management
Production Engineering
Stockholm, Sweden
December, 2013
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Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the faculty and staff of the Production Engineering and
Management department at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Over the past two years, their
support has helped us successfully complete the graduate production engineering program.
We would like to sincerely thank our supervisor Dr. Amir Rashid for introducing us to the
concepts of Multiple Lifecycle Product and Resource Conservative Manufacturing; all his
knowledge, guidance and generous support during this thesis work made this thesis possible. A
very special thank is also given to our supervisor Torbjörn Holm, director of business department
at Eurostep in Stockhom, Sweden, for providing us this research topic; we do appreciate his
guidance, encouragement, suggestions and discussions throughout the whole thesis work. We
would also like to thank Farazee M.A.Asif and Mattias Johansson for their helps and advices.
Special thanks to Leifeng Liu for his time and patience to go through our report, as well as his
comments.
Finally, we especially want to thank our families for their love, devotion, encouragement and all
the supports in our lives.
Stockholm, December 2013
Xin Ye and Xintong Zhang
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Abstract
Natural raw materials are consumed at a rapid rate due to the ever-growing population and the
endless pursuance of higher living standard of human kind, which alerts the manufacturing
industry that resource crisis would come soon if no proactive actions are taken. Rapid
manufacturing and consuming of products also brings about the serious environmental problems,
e.g. over mining leads to surface water and groundwater pollution, energy consumption emits
huge greenhouse gases, countless solid wastes threats human’s health and the sustainable use of
land. Manufacturing industry is faced with the dilemma of either to keep the economic growth to
meet the increasing society demand by immolating the earth and eco-system, or to save the earth
by sacrificing economic growth. However, besides those two alternatives, we could rethink about
developing innovative sustainable manufacturing strategies to find the balance point of
environmental, economic and social sustainability.
In this thesis, Multiple Lifecycle Product (MLP) is put forward as a solution towards sustainable
manufacturing. It aims to shift the current open loop manufacturing model i.e. “take-make-dispose”
to a seamless closed loop manufacturing model, which enables a product to have multiple
lifecycles for maximizing the utilization of raw material, minimizing the consumption of energy
and recapture the utmost value-added i.e. inputs in terms of labor, plant, equipment, etc. Resource
Conservative Manufacturing (ResCoM) is such a closed loop manufacturing system developed
based on MLP concept, which implements MLP through a series of meticulous and collaborative
works of product design, business model, closed loop supply chain and remanufacturing.
Numberless information will be generated from the collaborative work during the implementation
of MLP, and in each lifecycle of a MLP a wide range of product-related information has to be
archived properly. Therefore, this research work starts to develop a new PLM for MLP, also called
ResCoM PLM which will be one of the most powerful support tools for information management
and decision-making of MLP manufacturing.
As the beginning of ResCoM PLM research, this thesis targets to create a framework and
foundation of ResCoM PLM research. Concepts and terminologies in the area of PLM for MLP
are established systematically, and the ambiguous or overlapped concepts and terms presented in
the state-of-the-art will be compared and explained. IDEF0 information model of MLP is created
by investigating the essential activities of implementing MLP, i.e. product design, business design,
closed loop supply chain management and remanufacturing/manufacturing. Through elaborating
the mutual interdependence, interactions, feedback and causalities among the essential activities
and revealing the information and material flows of MLP manufacturing helps the readers to have
deep understanding of MLP manufacturing and identify the issues of ResCoM PLM research.
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Contents
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................ i
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................... ii
List of figures .................................................................................................................................................. iv
Abbreviations ................................................................................................................................................... v
1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Background and problem description ....................................................................................... 1
1.2 Research motivation ................................................................................................................. 4
1.2.1 Resource Conservation and waste management ............................................................. 4
1.2.2 Proactive action towards future market............................................................................. 5
1.3 Research scope and objectives ................................................................................................ 6
1.4 Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 7
2 State-of-the-Art Review .......................................................................................................................... 9
2.1 Closed Loop Manufacturing System......................................................................................... 9
2.1.1 Open Loop Manufacturing ................................................................................................ 9
2.1.2 Closed Loop Manufacturing ............................................................................................ 10
2.2 Multiple Lifecycle Product ....................................................................................................... 14
2.3 Closed Loop Product Lifecycle Management ......................................................................... 15
2.3.1 Product Lifecycle Management ....................................................................................... 15
2.3.2 Closed Loop Product Lifecycle Management ................................................................. 16
3 Information model for Multiple Lifecycle Product ............................................................................... 18
3.1 Previous work on PLM at Eurostep ........................................................................................ 18
3.2 ResCoM PLM development .................................................................................................... 19
3.2.1 Concept, terms and definitions ....................................................................................... 19
3.2.2 Information model for MLP manufacturing ...................................................................... 24
4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 40
4.1 Conclusion and discussion ..................................................................................................... 40
4.2 Achievement ........................................................................................................................... 42
4.2.1 Establish concepts and terminologies in the area of PLM for MLP ................................ 42
4.2.2 Establishing the framework and foundation of ResCoM PLM ........................................ 42
4.3 Future Work ............................................................................................................................ 43
References ...................................................................................................................................................... 44
Appendix I. Terminology of Multiple Lifecycle Product System ..................................................................... 50
Appendix II. Introduction of IDEF0 ............................................................................................................... 56
Appendix III. IDEFO Diagram of Multiple Lifecycle Product Manufacturing System .................................... 58
Appendix IV: Glossary of MLP IDEF0 model ................................................................................................ 68
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List of figures
Figure 1-1. World energy consumption ....................................................................................................... 1
Figure 1-2. Balance of economic, environmental, and social sustainability ................................................... 4
Figure 2-1. Open loop manufacturing system .............................................................................................. 9
Figure 2-2. Closed loop manufacturing system .......................................................................................... 11
Figure 2-3. Material flow of misconception 1 of closed loop supply chain ................................................... 12
Figure 2-4. Material flow of misconception 2 of closed loop supply chain ................................................... 13
Figure 2-5. Material flow of ideal closed loop supply chain ........................................................................ 13
Figure 3-1. ResCoM Product System ......................................................................................................... 20
Figure 3-2. The ResCoM business model. .................................................................................................. 23
Figure 3-3. IDEF0 A-0 diagram MLP Manufacturing System ................................................................... 25
Figure 3-4. IDEF0 A0 diagram MLP manufacturing ................................................................................ 27
Figure 3-5. IDEF0 A1 diagram Product & Business model design ............................................................. 29
Figure 3-6. IDEF0 A2.1 diagram Manufacturing ...................................................................................... 31
Figure 3-7. IDEF0 A2.2 diagram Remanufacturing .................................................................................. 32
Figure 3-8. IDEF0 A3 diagram Closed loop supply chain operation ........................................................... 34
Figure 3-9. IDEF0 A1-1 diagram Product strategy establishing ................................................................. 35
Figure 3-10. IDEF0 A1-2 diagram Business model formulating ................................................................. 37
Figure 3-11. IDEF0 A1-3 diagram Conceptual design ............................................................................... 38
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Abbreviations
MLP: Multiple Lifecycle Product
ResCoM: Resource Conservative Manufacturing
PEID: Product Embedded Information Device
RCP: Resource Conservative Product
RCLi: Resource Conservation Level, where i= 0,1,2…RCL0 represents RCP in its 1st, 2
nd,
3rd
…designed lifecycles
PLM: Product Lifecycle Management
PLCS: ISO 10303-239 Product Life Cycle Support
Closed loop PLM/ CL2M: Closed Loop Product Lifecycle Management
IDEF0: Icam DEFinition for Function Modeling, where 'ICAM' is an acronym for
Integrated Computer Aided Manufacturing
ResCoM PLM: Product Lifecycle Management for Resource Conservative Manufacturing
OEM: Original Equipment Manufacturer
BM: Business Model
PSS: Product Service System
CLSCM: Closed Loop Supply Chain Management
BoL: Beginning-of-Life-
MoL: Middle-of-Life
EoL: End-of-Life
EoU : End-of -Use
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1 Introduction
This chapter describes the background of the research, as well as presents the problems that the
research aims to solve. It then introduces motivations, objectives, scope and methodology of this
research.
1.1 Background and problem description
How to keep the ecological sustainability without compromising the economic growth has become
the first and foremost concern of both the developed and developing countries. The exponential
increasing worldwide population and economic growth are considered as the main causes that
aggravate the collapse of the earth’s ecosystem: natural resources including material and energy
are extracted with a faster speed than they can be restored; waste production exceeds the Earth’s
capacity to absorb the pollutants. The Worldwatch Institute (2013) reports that the private
consumption expenditures had a four-fold increase from 1960 to 2000. In next fifty years a five-
fold increase in the GDP per capital along with the worldwide population doubling is estimated,
consequently ten times energy and material will be consumed and ten-fold increase in waste will
be generated as those natural resources are used (Kumar et al., 2005). Besides, OECD forecasts
that three billion more middle class consumers will emerge by 2030 compared with 1.8 billion in
2010 in developing countries. From 2010 to 2030, 40-60% increasing demand for key resources
including energy, materials, food and water is predicted (Dobbs et al., 2011). As shown in Figure
1-1, the world energy consumption by 2040 is estimated to be two times as much as in 2000 (U.S.
Energy Information Administration, 2013), and the graph apparently depicts that the developing
countries will have high demand on energy than the developed countries.
Figure 1-1. World energy consumption
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Manufacturing is regarded as a powerful driven force to economic growth and improving of living
standard, and the manufacturing industrial revolution always brings about structural
transformation of economy. Manufacturing industry takes 16% share of global GDP and 14% of
employment (Manyika et al., 2012), and its impact on the economy is even larger when the
manufacturing-related activities, such as transportation, trading, and business support and services,
are taken into accounts. Consequently, manufacturing industry and manufacturing-related sectors
are the main consumers of the material and the energy, as well as the biggest contributor to waste
and pollutants generation. For example EU-27 countries manufacturing industry generated 12% of
the total 2.28 gigatonnes of solid waste in 2010, and 26.4 % of the total 3.45 gigatonnes
greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, CH4, N2O) in 2008 (Eurostat, 2012). From those huge numbers,
the resource scarcity (non-renewable materials), energy consumption, and waste management are
identified as the intractable problems faced by the manufacturing industry.
In 1970s, the Club of Rome firstly drew attention to the resource scarcity problem. Various
important natural resources were anticipated to run out within 100 years (Meadows et al., 1972).
Fortunately, some predictions have been turned out not to be true, and the lifetimes of some
materials have been extended thanks to the discoveries of new deposits, technological advances
and recycling effort. However, it is too early to be optimistic, at current rate of consumption,
certain resources will soon be exhausted. For example the available world resources of iron ore -
the key driver for the world’s economy which represents about 95% of all metal per year (GSA) -
is estimated to exceed 800 billion tons which seems quite enormous (U.S. Geological Survey,
2013), but Brown (2008) suggested that iron ore could be exhausted within 54 years if the
extraction rate increases 2% per year. Similarly, the reserve depletion times for lead, tin, copper
and bauxite are 17, 19, 25, and 68 years, respectively (Brown, 2008). Resources depletion forces
the manufacturing industry preparing to confront the challenge of high and volatile resource prices
in the near future. Nevertheless, exploiting resource conservation potentials and increasing the
recycling of materials could greatly prolong the coming date of resource crisis. During 2000-2005,
the EoL (End of Life)-recycling rates of Fe, Pb, Sn and Al are all above 50% (UNEP, 2011). In
2012, the global steel scrap use for steelmaking was around 570 million tonnes which is 36.9% of
the total world crude steel production (BIR, 2013). Thus, from a long-term perspective it is a wise
choice for manufacturing industry puts more efforts on recycling, increasing resource conservation
and product lifetime, and source reduction (i.e. activities aims to reduce the amount or toxicity of
waste generated from product manufacturing and EoL/EoU discarding). Besides non-renewable
materials, fossil fuels including oil, natural gas and coal are also finite. Around 80% of the world’s
energy consumption is originated from fossil over the last few decades (The World Bank, 2013).
The reserve depletion times for oil, gas and coal were calculated to be 40, 70, and 200 years,
respectively (Shafiee et al., 2009). Increasing energy efficiency and developing alternative energy
become the main solutions for tackling the energy crisis.
The surge in resource and energy consumption generates consequently countless waste including
both solid waste and emissions, which is a real headache for manufacturing industry. Each stage of
the production process generates specific types of waste that threaten human health and the earth’s
ecosystem: during extraction of raw materials, large amount of wastes are generated, for example
around 99 tonnes of waste are generated to produce only one tonne of copper. At the same time,
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mining causes also air, soil, surface water and groundwater contaminations; the solid waste
generated from manufacturing process and EoL product are taken the largest portion of waste
generation from manufacturing industry, which puts much stress on landfill. Furthermore,
manufacturing wastes, especially the e-waste (discarded computers, office electronic equipment,
entertainment device electronics, mobile phones, television sets, refrigerators, etc.) which is the
biggest and fastest growing manufacturing waste, often ends up in the hazardous category. All the
manufacturing and manufacturing-related activities (such as extraction and transportation of raw
material, and distribution and consumption of manufactured products) are directly linked to energy
consumption which leads to the greenhouse gas emissions, and even the treatment of solid waste
can produce greenhouse gas. Recent years, global warming has become an urgent problem that
needs to be solved by all the countries together.
In order to protect human health and the environment from the impacts of wastes, as well as
improve material and energy efficiency, the European Union has continuously issued several
directives: The End of Life Vehicles Directive (ELV) addresses that before 1 January 2015 the
reuse and recovery for all EoL vehicles shall be increased to a minimum of 95% by an average
weight per vehicle and year (European Commission, 2000); The Waste Electrical and Electronic
Equipment Directive (WEEE) sets collection, recycling and recovery targets for all types of
electrical goods, and the target is to recycle at least 85% of electrical and electronics waste
equipment by 2016 (European Commission, 2012); The Restriction of Hazardous Substances
Directive (RoHS) linked with the WEEE restricts the use of six hazardous materials - Pb, Hg, Cd,
Cr6+
, PBB, PBDE - in the manufacture of all types of electronic and electrical equipment
(European Commission, 2002); Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of
Chemicals ( REACH) addresses the responsibility of industry for assessing and managing the risks
for producing and using chemical substances, with the aim to protect human health and the
environment (European Commission, 2006). Since hazardous materials and chemicals waste
generated from manufacturing processes and the EoL/EoU product must be handled properly,
manufacturing industry has to limit the use of hazardous materials and chemicals, which leads
manufacturer to think about recycling, recovery and reuse of products.
Legislative effort motives manufacturing industry to rethink the definition of “waste”. In current
manufacturing system, ten million tonnes of materials are designated as waste every day, and 70%
of them go to landfills (Dobbs et al., 2011). In fact, besides material and energy, value added (in
terms of labor, machine etc.) is also an essential input for manufacturing, however, this input is
often neglected when manufacturers think about recycling. Actually, recapturing maximum value
from a “waste” could bring soaring economic benefit to manufacturing industry.
In conclusion, manufacturing industry is facing the growing market demand in the future; on the
other hand, it is restricted by limit materials and energy. At the same time, it has to take the
responsibility for achieving sustainable manufacturing, which aims to release zero solid waste and
emission, and recapture the maximum value recovery of EoL product. It is no doubt that
manufacturing industry will neither sacrifice economic growth for saving the earth nor immolate
the earth and the ecosystem for achieving immoderate economic growth. Human intelligence is
being challenged to develop sustainable manufacturing systems which could provide a balance
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point of the economic and ecological sustainability. The concept of Multiple Lifecycle Product
(MLP) is such a solution that aims to increase product lifetime to maximize the resource
conservation and value recovery of product, as well as minimize the waste. Resource Conservative
Manufacturing (ResCoM) is a holistic concept of sustainable manufacturing system for
implementing MLP.
1.2 Research motivation
Economic success, ecological sustainability, and development of society and civilization are the
major incentives to manufacturing industry. Those three factors are connected with and restricting
each other. Therefore, the introduction of MLP solves contradictions within three dominations i.e.
economic, environmental, and social sustainability (Figure 1-2), thereby leads to a more economic
and ecological sustainable society.
Figure 1-2. Balance of economic, environmental, and social sustainability
1.2.1 Resource Conservation and waste management
Currently, products are made, used, and thrown away. This is an “open loop” manufacturing
system that humanity is accustomed to, and they have practised the same for centuries. However,
over the past decade, the resource price has sharply increased which wipes away all the declines of
the 20th
century (Dobbs et al., 2011), which indicates that manufacturers are now facing
unprecedented pressure from the high and volatile resource prices. MLP offers alternative to
optimize resources and increase resource productivity through extending products’ lifetime with
multiple life cycles design. By this way, MLP could minimize the losses of resources i.e. energy,
raw material, and value added (in terms of labor, machines etc.). That is to say, turning the current
open loop manufacturing system to a closed loop manufacturing system, thus EoL/EoU products
regarded as waste in the open loop manufacturing system become the core resource for
remanufacturing. MLP requires OEMs to rethink product design from a full lifecycles perspective
to improve their ability to reuse products and maintain the quality, as well as improve the
serviceability and traceability of products. At the same time, OEMs have to shift business model
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to change the resource ownership and recapture the value of the EoL/EoU product. Note that end
users of MLP play two rolls – consumers and close co-operators, as the co-operators they are
required to return or send back the EoL/EoU products to OEMs for remanufacturing. Thus, OEMs
need to carefully design a closed supply chain system for coordinating their relations with end
users. Such a never ending circular supply chain of “product to consumer for use” then “product
back to OEM for remanufacture” will enhance the efficiency of MLP manufacturing.
All manufacturers are aware that their products have a life limit. However, traditionally at the
EoU/EoL of most products no ways are provided from manufactures to guide the users to handle
those products properly. Instead, most of them have the description of “dispose safely.” This is not
a solution but a significant problem to both the environment, and also increased ill health and risk
to humanity (Stark, 2007). Therefore, after understanding the MLP and its underlying principle,
one can understand how such principles can be applied for closing the open loop manufacturing
system. As a result, the amount of waste will be greatly reduced, instead sustainable resources
supply could be achieved by manufacturing industry.
1.2.2 Proactive action towards future market
Resource and ecological crisis have been noticed for a long time, more and more legislative efforts
(Gray et al., 2007) have been put on controlling the problems. A decade ago, most of the
manufacturers were blind to the problem of resource depletion and waste management. They were
forced to comply with the legislations. Lack of predictability and slow response to resource
scarcity and ecological problems could easily bring a manufacturing company to the end.
Investigation on MLP and its manufacturing support system ResCoM are proactive actions for the
manufacturers to tackle the problems. ResCoM seamlessly integrates product design, business
model, closed loop supply chain and remanufacturing to create an ideal closed loop manufacturing
system for MLP. It is a well-designed and sophisticated system for maximizing resource
conservation, in this system the mutual dependency, interaction, and feedback and causality
among product design, business model and closed loop supply chain have to be thoroughly
considered, so as to find the balance point of the optimal resource conservation, environmental
impact and economic benefit. Note that since those activities are closely linked with each other,
once there is any problem occurred in one activity, the whole closed loop manufacturing system
might collapse. Thus, the success of MLP essentially depends on the efficient and accurate
information exchanging and management among those activities. Obviously, a powerful Product
Lifecycle Management (PLM) system will be one of the most effective tools to guarantee the
success of MLP and ResCoM. Research and development of a new PLM system for MLP is
therefore one of the most important branches of MLP research. This new PLM system should
provide a new and effective way to manage MLPs’ lifecycles-related information. By using this
tool, OEMs could manage and control the product-related information at any phase of the MLP’s
lifecycles with their supplier, partner, and customers. Thereby, the closed loop manufacturing
system is strictly under control. Establishing the concepts of MLP and its supporting
manufacturing system ResCoM, and developing a corresponding PLM system are proactive
actions towards the future market. This economic and ecological sustainable manufacturing
innovation would help a company keeping or enhancing competitiveness in the market, and also
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leaving a positive impression (intangible wealth of a company) to consumers by showing its
strong responsibility for social and environmental sustainable development.
1.3 Research scope and objectives
In this thesis, we put forwards a new concept - Multiple Lifecycle Product (MLP) which means
that a product is designed for using multiples times to change the current resource-consuming
manufacturing model into resource-conservation manufacturing model. In order to implement
MLP, a new closed loop manufacturing paradigm called Resource Conservative Manufacturing
(ResCoM) will also be introduced as the manufacturing support system for MLP. ResCoM is the
customized manufacturing system for MLP, which considers how MLP should be designed,
manufactured, delivered, collected and remanufactured from one lifecycle to the next lifecycle.
Accordingly, a new information system is required to manage all the product-related information
generated throughout the whole lifecycles of MLP. ResCoM PLM is such a data and information
management system that we want to developed for implementing and serving MLP and ResCoM.
As the theoretic foundations for developing ResCoM PLM, main concepts and principles in the
area of MLP, ResCoM and ResCoM PLM will be established and explained at the beginning of
this research. Notably the existing state-of-the-art concepts in this field, e.g. closed loop
manufacturing, multiple lifecycle products, and closed loop PLM etc. are different from the
concepts presented in this thesis, and they will be compared and interpreted explicitly. Moreover,
the advantages of MLP and ResCoM compared to conventional sustainable manufacturing will be
highlighted.
For developing ResCoM PLM, the research will firstly look into the critical activities of ResCoM
i.e. product design, business model design, manufacturing/remanufacturing, and closed loop
supply chain management. The information and material flows over the whole lifecycles of a MLP
will be outlined. ResCoM PLM has two significances to MLP: one is that the information
generated from different activities of ResCoM needs to be managed and exchanged among
different departments (e.g. product design, marketing, supply chain management etc.) within a
manufacturing company. As the result of information communication, the company can make the
optimal decision for limiting environmental impact, increasing economic benefit and maximizing
high resource conservation. The other significance of ResCoM PLM to MLP is that it provides a
platform for recording all the product-related data generated in each lifecycle of MLP. Those data
will be generated, shared and managed by the manufacturer and its sub-supplier, partner, and
customers. Eurostep’s Share-A-space PLM data management software will be used as a base
model for the research of the PLM for MLP. Share-A-Space extends the traditional PLM system
from product design and production domains of a product lifecycle to aftermarket support domain.
It is a mature and refined platform which implements STEP and PLCS standards for secure and
efficient PLM collaboration. Thus Share-A-Space and PLCS standard are chosen as the good
starting points for ResCoM PLM research. The research of this thesis is regarded as the
fundamental research of PLM for MLP. Future research issues, including analysing the similarities
and differences between a desired PLM and current Share-A-Space, reforming and refining Share-
A-Space or creating a totally new PLM for MLP, as well as testing the new PLM system by case
study, will not be included in this thesis.
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In summary, the objectives of this thesis are:
Establish concepts and terminologies in the area of PLM for MLP, and distinguish them from
the ambiguous or overlapped concepts and terms presented in the state-of-the-art;
Create information models of MLP, which reflect the forward and reversed information flow
throughout the whole lifecycles of MLP, and how to manage this information for supporting
the decision making and operation.
1.4 Methodology
The scientific ethos requires researchers not to be too sure of anything since “obvious truths” have
a tendency to be false; on the other hand, avoid complete scepticism otherwise one will never get
anywhere. Research methodology is the systematic, theoretical analysis of the methods applied to
solve the research problem (Kothari, 2004).
This thesis is a research on PLM for MLP, and the procedure of information system research and
development follows six steps (Avision et al., 1995):
Feasibility study: analyse current information systems, such as current structures and
modelling tools. This research will start at looking into PLCS standard and its corresponding
software tools which Share-A-Space are based on;
Systems investigation: find the requirements of current and new systems, constraints,
resources, conditions, and problems, i.e. find the detailed differences between the current
Share-A-Space and the desired PLM for MLP;
Systems analysis: analyse current system, and express how Share-A-Space can be improved
for ResCoM PLM;
Systems design: describe input, output, processes, structures, security and back-up, testing and
implementation plans;
Implementation: practical software development, such as programming
Review and maintenance: correct errors or make changes.
Comprehensive understanding of MLP and relevant concepts and terms including ResCoM is the
prerequisite for developing a customize PLM for MLP. The most commonly used method –
literature studies is used in this thesis for problem formulation and for collecting background
information. The literature studies encompass the area of remanufacturing, closed loop
manufacturing, closed loop PLM, MLP, ResCoM, IDEF0 modelling etc. Papers from journals and
sources will be excluded from the review if they do not discuss a general and repeatable practice.
Through content analyses and critical analyses of sources, the thesis will outline the similarities
and differences between existing concepts and new concepts proposed in this research.
Modelling is a basic method used in this thesis. Model is a convenient representation that replaces
an object, in order to learn and control the object, and to predict its behaviour or explain its
properties. In this thesis, models were constructed to reflect important features of the object - MLP
manufacturing system. Share-A-Space is based on PLCS (ISO 10303 AP 239), a STEP
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Application Protocol, an informative application activity model i.e. IDEF0 model is required for
every Application Protocol to provide a better understanding of the scope, information
requirements and usage scenarios of the Application Protocol. Thus, in ResCoM PLM research,
we also start by creating IDEF0 model for MLP.
In order to ensure the truth of models, the modelling will be examined by re-interpretation of
assumptions, de-idealisation, and isolation. Re-interpretation of assumptions is an approach to
correct some misinterpreted assumptions of a model. De-idealisation is to make a model more
realistic to the object. The advancement of this approach would correct distortions affected by
idealizations and add back the discarded elements, thus ensuring the models more usefully
concrete or particular. Isolation is described by Mäki (1992) as ” theoretical or ideal isolation is
manifest when a system, relation, process, or feature, based on an intellectual operation in
constructing a concept, model, or theory, is closed from the involvement or impact of some other
features of the situation”. In this context, questions concerning MLP integration from a critical
review are aroused: Physical integration of MLP theories interconnects all aspects (including
product design, business model, closed loop supply chain, manufacturing, remanufacturing etc.) of
OEM production, however with limited amounts of MLP and PLM performance in closed loop
manufacturing cycles available for thorough inspection, should all aspects of a business be
immediately integrated? Or would a conservative approach such as slowly adding elements and
verifying performance before complete integration be more practical as a solution?
In the future research, validation and testing of PLM for MLP by case study are indispensable to
check if it is adequate to implement MLP, namely, if it can move MLP from the ethereal state of
theory into practice. Since primary and secondary sourcing of MLP is limited now, one must
question the authenticity of using the MLP approach to envelop an entire system, top-to-bottom
inside-and-out, which reflects the nature of MLP entirely in broad scale and across the board for
complete implementation.
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2 State-of-the-Art Review
Innovation with MLP is inspired by creating a new paradigm for sustainable manufacturing, which
offers an inventive and efficient way to ease stresses on current dwindling supplies of resources,
while offering a new platform for multiple-use parts and products. In the past few decades,
research effort on resource conservation manufacturing is visible. In this chapter, the state-of-the-
art researches and industrial practices relevant to MLP, ResCoM and PLM for MLP, i.e. closed
loop manufacturing system, multiple lifecycle product, closed loop product lifecycle management,
will be briefly presented. At the same time, the limitations of the state-of-the-art researches will be
critiqued.
2.1 Closed Loop Manufacturing System
2.1.1 Open Loop Manufacturing
Our daily consumption behaviours have been spoiled by the traditional manufacturing system for
centuries. Manufacturers in such manufacturing system are accustomed to acquire raw natural
material, manufacture and sell products. Correspondingly, consumers are used to buy, use, and
finally dump products because they are broken, out-of-date or any other reasons. The
manufacturing complying “take-make-dispose” model (Figure 2-1) is called Open Loop
Manufacturing which requires inexhaustible resources and energy for proceeding its
manufacturing activities.
Figure 2-1. Open loop manufacturing system (refer to: Nasr et al., 2006)
As the rapid growth of population and increasing demand on high living standard, the resources
and ecological crisis caused by industrial activities have drawn more and more attentions.
Fortunately, more and more people and organizations take actions to respond to the crises,
10
including manufactures, consumers, institutes, and governments. As environmental concerns grow,
recycling has been a key practice for keeping sustainable living since the late 1980s, which greatly
improves the utilization of natural materials. Municipal solid waste in the United States 2011 facts
and figures (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2011) shows the dramatically
increased recovery (as a percentage of generation) of most materials in municipal solid waste from
1970 to 2011, e.g. the increased recovery of paper and paperboard, glass, metals, and plastics are
51%, 27%, 30%, and 8% respectively. Haas et al. (2011) took an overview of recycling amounts
in EU 27 for all material categories for current situation, targets reached, potential and 100%
recycling. An overall calculation indicates that the further potential of all material efficiency can
be raised up to 8.7% (for some materials even higher e.g. iron by about 20%). The Tellus Institute
(2011) provided strong evidence that an enhanced national recycling and compositing strategy in
U.S. can significantly address climate change, job creation and health improving. Ho (2002)
compared the recycling behaviours between two countries, which is a practical and useful way to
find out the advanced recycling strategy.
However, recycling is exposed to increasing limitations. Fleischer (1997) demonstrated that
recycling was not always an energy and resource saver. The environmental burden of recycling
and disassembling is higher than the disposal of a product when a so-called environmental break-
even-point regarding the whole product life cycle is exceeded. Reuter et al. (UNEP, 2013)
indicated that sorting materials is a big barrier of recycling. Therefore, the effort of recycling is far
to save the earth from resources and ecological crisis, better approaches have to be found.
2.1.2 Closed Loop Manufacturing
A chronological overview on the development of environmental-friendly product points out that
the above-mentioned recycling approach was developed before 1990s with the concerns on
reducing emissions and raw material consumption. In 1990s redesign approach (e.g. modular
system) of existing product concepts emerged, which contributed additionally on reducing energy
consumption. Since 2000s the innovation of new product with increased eco-effectiveness and
functionality has become the mainstream. System innovation, which focuses on providing services
instead of products to fulfill consumers’ needs in order to reacquire value-added, was predicted as
the new trend for future sustainable manufacturing (Birkhofer et al., 2005).
Actually, circular economy (Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2012) has attracted more and more
attentions, and it guides people to rethink of the future, that is, shifting current linear ‘take-make-
dispose’ model of production and consumption to a circular economy by applying the resources
conservative strategies. As a result, a win-win situation for both economic and ecological
sustainability could be achieved.
Closed Loop Manufacturing ((Figure 2-2) is an effective way to protect our natural resources. It is
always mentioned as the EoL/EoU product recovery system which generally encompasses
activities including collecting EoL/EoU product (also called as “core”), determining the potential
for the product’s reuse, disassembling and segregating valuable components, remanufacturing
components, recycling materials, and disposing waste (Toffel, 2004).
11
Figure 2-2. Closed loop manufacturing system (refer to: Nasr et al., 2006)
Remanufacturing is frequently put in the most important position in the closed loop manufacturing
system. Thus massive researches have been conducted to investigate remanufacturing, and link
product design, reverse supply chain, and business model to remanufacturing.
Remanufacturing is defined by The Centre for Remanufacturing and Reuse (CRR) as following:
A series of manufacturing steps acting on an end-of-life part or product in order to return it to
like-new or better performance, with warranty to match.
Özer (2012) emphasized that remanufacturing was a value recapturing process in which the value
added to material when a product was first manufactured was recaptured. Gray et al. (2007)
concluded remanufacturing processes as 8 steps and a basic sequence was presented: core
collection, inspection, disassembly, cleaning, reprocessing, reassembly, and testing. However,
according to Sundin (2004) the sequence of the steps depends on the product remanufactured.
Östlin (2008a) figured out that the main three drives of remanufacturing are profit, legislations,
and environmental concerns. The environmental and economic contributions (in terms of
decreased waste, energy and material consumption, lower cost and increased profit) of
remanufacturing were added to demonstrate the importance and advantages of remanufacturing
(Steinhilper, 1998; Tchertchian et al., 2009).
Design for Remanufacturing facilitates the remanufacturing and significantly amplifies the
contribution of remanufacturing. Nasr et al. (2006) declared that remanufacturing’s potential huge
environmental, economic and social benefits are not possible to get without using Design for
Remanufacturing as the essential tool. Thus design for remanufacturing becomes one of the hottest
topics of remanufacturing, which mainly focuses on Design for Core Collection, Design for
Disassembly, Design for Modularity (Umeda et al., 2008), Eco-Design, Design for Upgrade, and
Design for Evaluation (Gray et al., 2007; Seliger et al, 2008). Correspondingly, massive studies on
design tools (Bovea et al., 2012; Bras and Hammond, 1996), design guidelines (Ijomah, 2009;
Zbicinski et al., 2006), and economic and environmental assessment methods and models (Shu et
12
al., 1999; Kerr, 1999; Mont et al., 2006) were carried out for supporting product design for
remanufacturing.
Closed loop supply chain has been also considered as an enabler for remanufacturing for decades.
A traditional description on closed loop supply chain is that it is consisted of two distinct material
supply chains i.e. the forward and reverse supply chain (Ferguson et al., 2010). The forward
supply chain is in charge of the flow of physical product from manufacturer to customer, while the
reverse supply chain is responsible for the flow of used physical products from the customer back
to remanufacturer, those two flows are closed by remanufacturing (Östlin et al., 2008b). However,
Asif (2012) distinguished two misconceptions on closed loop supply chain from the genuine
concept of ideal closed loop supply chain.
Misconception 1: Remanufacturing is most often performed by the 3rd
party (cores are collected
by e.g. curbside recycling), and the remanufactured product is distributed to a different market
(see Figure 2-3). Actually, this is an entirely open system which is consisted of two forward
supply chains, one for OEM and the other for remanufacturer.
Figure 2-3. Material flow of misconception 1 of closed loop supply chain
Misconception 2: Remanufacturing is performed by the OEM (or an authorized 3rd
party), but the
remanufactured product is distributed to a different market through different channel (see Figure
2-4). This misconception is often mistaken as a “closed loop supply chain”; actually, reverse
supply chain in this case has an open end.
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Figure 2-4. Material flow of misconception 2 of closed loop supply chain
Ideal closed loop supply chain: Remanufacturing is performed by the OEM (or an authorized 3rd
party), and the remanufactured product is distributed to the same market through the same channel
as the first manufactured product (see Figure 2-5). In this model, OEM has the access to plan and
control the circular product delivering and collection system, which enables a more effective and
construable remanufacturing system to be established based on the ideal closed loop supply chain.
Figure 2-5. Material flow of ideal closed loop supply chain
Thus, in this thesis only the closed loop manufacturing having an ideal closed loop supply chain is
considered as “Closed Loop Manufacturing (also called ResCoM) for MLP”; Others so-called
closed loop manufacturing with above-mentioned misconceptions are classified as “Conventional
Closed Loop Manufacturing”.
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Conventional closed loop manufacturing mentioned in most of the literatures treats only one
aspect of product design, closed loop supply chain, or remanufacturing. Exceptionally, Mont et al.
(2006) linked the product design, business model and remanufacturing, as well as analysed the
economic and environmental benefits. The report of Centre for Remanufacturing and Reuse (CRR
report) put much effort to compare and evaluated three scenarios of product design and
corresponding business model of each product design, which indicated that different product
design needed totally different business model and supply chain management, and different
combinations of product design, business model, and supply chain planning made varied
contributions to economic and environmental benefits.
Östlin (2008a) realized that remanufacturing was not controllable due to the high degree of
uncertainty of the quantity, quality of the returned product. Since the returned product is the main
input of remanufacturing, the quantity, quality and timing of the returned product affect the
success of closed loop manufacturing. However, no solution was put forward by conventional
closed loop manufacturing system to solve the uncertainties of quality, quantity and timing of the
returned product. Without solving those problems, closed loop manufacturing system would be a
chaotic system. Contrary to conventional closed loop manufacturing, MLP has adopted a new
sustainable manufacturing system - Resource Conservative Manufacturing (ResCoM) (Asif, 2012).
ResCoM is based on the ideal closed loop supply chain, and has the ability to solve the high
degree of uncertainty in remanufacturing. Further details of ResCoM will be introduced in 3.2.1.
2.2 Multiple Lifecycle Product
MLP is a new-born concept which can be traced in only a few literatures published in recent years,
and even no clear definition can be found so far. For a MLP, product life span is a circular
construction of multiple lifecycles, and MLP manufacturing proposes consumers’ participation as
a need. Traditionally, the lifecycle of a product with single life is generally equal to the lifecycle
of the component that has the shortest life, while the lifecycle of a MLP could be determined
based on the component that has the longest design life (Asif, 2012). MLP gives resources the
ability to be used through a closed loop manufacturing systems, thereby electrifying innovation.
Above all, this principle helps in fulfilling and promoting environmental management while
encouraging product innovation.
Tchertchian et al., (2009) proposed reusable modular design with environmental and economic
evaluations for MLP. The article suggests designers to decide product’s lifecycles in the early
design process. It also provides a guide for designers to evaluate the environmental and economic
performance of various design concepts of a product with respect to multiple life cycles.
Abbey et al., (2013) described that a product could have multiple life cycles through modular
design, and listed a series of problems raised by MLP, e.g. high line congestions levels, longer
lead times, higher levels of inventory, and lower levels of customer service. The article provides a
delayed differentiation model to leverage the past generation products for continued use, thus
gives flexibility to remanufacturing. Note that the root causes of the problems are actually, as
15
mentioned the uncertainties of quality, quantity and timing of the returned product. From this
point of view the article did not provide a fundamental solution to the listed problems of MLP.
Coincidentally, MLP is often mentioned with modular design. This is because modular design
approach delivers flexibility to the manufacturer to offer updates to modular structures through
remanufacturing, by this way easily improving the dynamic performance and capabilities of the
product. Thus, a common base and modular design approach is considered as one of the most
important approaches for the closed loop manufacturing systems. However, how to trace the life
cycles’ information of a MLP and how to identify a MLP in different life cycles are the key issues
needed to be solved in the development of MLP. ResCoM provides a unique insight to solve the
issues, which will be introduced in 3.2.1.
MLP has the potential to radically reform current manufacturing to a resource conservative,
environmental-friendly and economy growth manufacturing. However, trade-off exists among
those three aspects, thus a MLP strategy needs to consider those three aspects carefully according
to different cases to find the balance point.
2.3 Closed Loop Product Lifecycle Management
2.3.1 Product Lifecycle Management
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is defined as following (CIMdata, 2002):
A strategic business approach that applies a consistent set of business solution in support of the
collaborative creation, management, dissemination, and use of product definition information
across the extended enterprise from concept to end of life integrating people, processes, business
systems, and information.
PLM was originated in the late 1990s. It aims to monitor the development of a product, to analyse
issues aroused at any stage in product’s lifecycle, to make proper decisions to the issues, and to
execute the decisions. The scope of information management in PLM includes products, processes,
and resources, which means that a great numbers of lifecycle information are created, changed,
transferred, stored, and converted by different organizations and application systems (Jun et al.,
2007a). Kiritsis (2008) discussed kinds of benefits of PLM: financial performance, time reduction,
quality improvement, and business improvement. In the open loop manufacturing system, product
is designed with single lifecycle which is divided into three phases:
Beginning of Life (BoL): design and production;
Middle of Life (MoL): distribution, use, service, maintenance;
End of Life (EoL): disposal and recycling (applied to certain products, e.g. electronic product,
mainly to obey the legislations).
Currently, most of the PLM softwares are used by the open loop manufacturing system to manage
product-related information only in product design and production stages, namely, at the
beginning of product’s lifecycle. Some PLM softwares, such as Share-A-Space, extend the
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product-related information management to aftermarket domain (MoL). However, few PLM
softwares take the EoL stage into account, and no PLM is designed for MLP.
2.3.2 Closed Loop Product Lifecycle Management
Origination of closed loop PLM
Current available PLM softwares are obviously incapable to meet the requirements of the closed
loop manufacturing, e.g. it is lost control of core collection, remanufacturing, reselling, and
redistribution. Thus, Closed Loop Product Lifecycle Management (closed loop PLM or CL2M)
strives to extend PLM to the usage, remanufacturing, reuse and other lifecycle phases of a product
(Främling et al., 2013). The concept of closed-loop PLM (Jun et al., 2006) is defined as following:
A strategic business approach for the effective management of product life cycle activities by
using product data/information/knowledge which are accumulated in the closed-loops of product
life cycle with the support of PEIDs (Product Embedded Information Device) and product data &
knowledge management (PDKM) system.
The concept of closed loop PLM originated from the PROduct lifecycle Management and
Information tracking using Smart Embedded systems (PROMISE) project, which aims to close the
production lifecycle information loops, and to enable seamless e-Transformation of Product
Lifecycle Information to Knowledge, and it has made a good beginning and some achievements of
the closed loop PLM research.
Characteristics of closed loop PLM
Contrary to conventional PLM, the closed loop PLM turns to complete lifecycle of a product with
focus on EoL phase of product lifecycle. Note that besides disposal and recycling EoL in closed
loop PLM encompasses also reverse supply chain, remanufacturing and reuse. Thus Jun et al.
(2007a) proposed that the closed loop PLM has the characteristics as following:
Designers can use product lifecycle information, e.g. conditions of retirement and disposal of
similar products for improving product designs.
Production engineers can receive the real-time data of production workshops.
Service and maintenance experts can access up-to-date report with respect to status of a
product which is helpful for their works.
Recyclers and re-users can judge the value of a used product by analysing the use and
conditions of the product.
Note that our PLM for MLP belongs to closed loop PLM; However, we name it as ResCoM PLM
due to its distinct features, which additionally highlight the interrelationship among product design,
closed loop supply chain management and business model, as well as the close interaction
between OEMs and customers. Thus, besides the above-mentioned characteristics of closed loop
PLM, ResCoM PLM should have extraordinary characteristics.
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Product Embedded Information Devices and closed loop PLM
Intelligent products are the technological basis for introducing closed loop PLM (Främling et al.,
2013). Product having multiples life cycles raises the problems, e.g. how to identify and track the
product over its multiple life cycles, long life-span, and locations. Physical products with Product
Embedded Information Devices (PEID), such as RFID tags, sensors or sensors networks, are
called intelligent products. With the help of PEID the intelligent product has its identity and
computing capabilities for communicating and keeping track of its history (Kiritsis, 2011). It is
exactly the advent of PEID that inspires the research of closed loop PLM. Similarly, ResCoM
proposes that MLP needs to be embedded with smart components to track the MLP’s usage data
and lifecycles information. Kiritsis (2011) predicted that the future intelligent products need
advanced Product Data Technology to achieve seamless interoperability of systems and exchange
Dynamic Product Data.
So far, the research of closed loop PLM is still at the theoretical stage and achievements are
limited: research issues on closed-loop PLM were highlighted by Jun et al. (2007a), and they
proceeded to put forward a system architecture for closed-loop PLM and a case study was applied
to verify the system architecture (Jun et al., 2007b). Cassina et al. (2009) formulated the proposal
of a closed loop PLM standard. Only limited experiences could be gotten from previous research,
which indicates that the research and development of ResCoM PLM will encounter many
unknown challenges.
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3 Information model for Multiple Lifecycle Product
In this chapter previous work on PLM at Eurostep is introduced. Current progress on ResCoM
PLM development for MLP is presented: Concepts, terms, and definitions of MLP and ResCoM
are systematically established; Information models are created to elaborate the information and
material flows, as well as the information management of MLP manufacturing.
3.1 Previous work on PLM at Eurostep
Eurostep’s core competence is product information management by providing innovative software
and solutions for secure PLM collaboration with Share-A-Space, which enables the PLM data be
shared effectively and accurately among OEMs and its suppliers, partners, and customers without
data security problem at any stages of the product life cycle. Summarily, Share-A-Space currently
has the following characteristics:
Support BoL and MoL stages of the product lifecycle in an open loop manufacturing,
including early requirements gathering through design and manufacturing into operational use
and dismantling.
Share PLM data among multiple organizations with high efficiency, accuracy and security by
automating sharing and exchange capabilities, data consolidation and access control.
No restriction on the formats of digital content and it has the ability to integrate enterprise
systems such as PDM, ERP and Asset Management systems.
Share-A-Space is based on the ISO 10303 (i.e. ISO 10303-214 Automotive Design, ISO 10303-
239 Product Life Cycle Support and ISO 10303-233 System Engineering). Among those standards
Product Life Cycle Support (PLCS) is considered as one of the foundations of the ResCoM PLM.
PLCS is an application protocol of STEP (ISO 10303 AP 239). Different from most of the PLM
softwares which focus only on product design and production domains, Share-A-Space keeps also
eyes on the issues and opportunities in the aftermarket. It is mainly designed to help OEMs to
provide effective low-cost global support (in terms of maintenance, upgrade, and value-added
services) for the long-life complex engineered products, such as aircrafts, ships, industrial
equipment, and heavy vehicles (Dunford et al., 2007). One can figure out that traditional PLM
ends the information management of a product when the product has been sold out, while PLM
based on PLCS extends the information management of a product to aftermarket. Namely, Share-
A-Space based on PLCS creates a more complete PLM system, which is the main reason that
ResCoM PLM research chooses Share-A-Space and PLCS as starting points.
In the open loop manufacturing system, there are only weak connections and even no connections
between some players, e.g. disconnections between business model and product design, business
model and manufacturing, customer and reverse supply chain, etc. In contrast, the implementation
of MLP involves a series of collaborative activities, which requires all the players having strong
connections with each other, and those strong connections are the key elements for closing the
manufacturing system. Thus, we need a corresponding PLM for supporting the implementation of
MLP, which can be used for collaborative product multiple lifecycles management, from the
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internal departments (include but not limit departments of product design, supply chain
management, marketing, production) of OEM to external partners, suppliers, and customers.
Moreover, the desired PLM should also provide solutions for product multiple lifecycles
management, e.g. how the OEM can use it to identify and tract a product in different lifecycles, as
well as get to know the history of the product. Summarily, the requirements of ResCoM PLM are
largely different from traditional PLM, and more complicate than the closed loop PLM mentioned
in chapter 2.3.2. Eurostep regards MLP as big potentials to radically change the business and
technology paradigm of the whole industry in the future. Thus, research on ResCoM PLM
becomes its proactive action to win the future PLM software market.
3.2 ResCoM PLM development
In this research, we will establish concepts, terminologies and definitions in the area of PLM for
MLP, which are the foundations for ResCoM PLM research at Eurostep. And then activity models
of MLP manufacturing system are created to illustrate a series of linked activities and processes
over the whole lifecycles of a MLP in order to help readers to have comprehensive understanding
of MLP manufacturing, and recognize the research issues of ResCoM PLM for each lifecycle
phase.
3.2.1 Concept, terms and definitions
In order to explore a new PLM as strong information management support for implementing MLP,
a specific vocabulary in the area of MLP and ResCoM needs to be established to provide the
foundations for ResCoM PLM research for the softwares developers who do know the concepts of
MLP and ResCoM. Those foundations will be even helpful for promoting ResCoM PLM to the
market in the future. The concept, terminologies, and definitions (Appendix I) are based on a
state-of the-art review of MLP and ResCoM.
Multiple Lifecycle Product (MLP)
Multiple Lifecycle Product is a sustainable manufacturing approach with a holistic view to change
current resource-consuming manufacturing paradigm into resource-conservation paradigm.
According to the MLP proposed in Resource Conservative Manufacturing (ResCoM) (Rashid et
al., 2013), we develop and define the concept in this thesis as:
A product is designed for using multiples times with predefined numbers of life cycles and working
intervals (the service time of each lifecycle), and its rebirths are achieved by a rigorously
designed closed loop manufacturing system where product design, close loop supply chain,
business model and remanufacturing are systematically integrated.
Here the rigorously designed closed loop manufacturing system refers to ResCoM, which is a new
strategy for implementing MLP. Contrary to the MLP proposed in the State-of-the-Art Review 2.2,
MLP proposed in this research stresses on solving the following issues:
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Identification and traceability of a MLP over its whole lifecycles (by applying MLP
nomenclature and PEID) ;
Multiple lifecycles assessment (to assess environmental impacts, resources conservation, and
economic benefit associated with all the stages of a product's multiple lifecycles);
Product multiple lifecycles management (by applying ResCoM PLM)
Uncertainty of the quantity, quality and timing of the returned product for the next life of
MLP by integrating product design, close loop supply chain and business model (by applying
ResCoM);
Customers awareness and involvement
Resource Conservative Manufacturing (ResCoM)
ResCoM concept is based on the notion of MLP. It is put forwarded by Asif (2012) and defined as
following:
A strategic model which emphasizes conservation of resources through product’s multiple life
cycles by product design, incorporating supply chain and business model and by integrating
OEMs, consumers and other relevant stakeholders. Resources conservative manufacturing system
seeks to optimize material and energy usage in manufacturing, use phase and end of use and value
recovery from the product at the end of life.
ResCoM Product System is described as Figure 3-1 (Rashid et al., 2013),
Figure 3-1. ResCoM Product System
ResCoM emphasises on establishing a closed loop manufacturing system for MLP to maximize
the conservation of energy, material and value added and minimize the solid waste and emissions
which are regarded as the burden of the environment. ResCoM closes the manufacturing system
by integrating the product design, business model, closed loop supply chain management and
remanufacturing, thus we can conclude that mutual interdependence, interactions, feedback and
causalities among them are essential features of ResCoM.
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Remanufacturing for ResCoM
Remanufacturing is used as a fundamental tool and basic activity for implementing ResCoM.
Though MLP is a new concept, manufacturer or third parties have taken actions in the industrial
practice to give a used product ‘new life” when the product has functionally failed or has reached
the end of its designed life. The actions include repairing, reconditioning and refurbishing. In this
context, remanufacturing is usually confused with recycling, reuse, recondition, repair etc. (Gray
et al., 2007). The Remanufacturing Institute (The Remanufacturing Institute) points out that
“remanufacturing is not a widely understood concept”, thought it has been put forward for decades.
Therefore it is important to distinguish the differences (Gray et al., 2007; Steinhilper, 1998) to get
better understand of remanufacturing and MLP.
Recycling returns a used product into raw materials in order to reduce the consumption of natural
raw materials, energy, and air and water pollution from landfilling (Gray et al., 2007). In contrast,
remanufacturing is more superior, it is a process of recapturing the value added, in terms of
machine and labor etc., to the material when a product was first manufactured.
Reuse is to directly use a product again after it has been used. In this case, the product keeps the
same condition as it acquired (Gray et al., 2007). While remanufacturing returns a used product to
“good as new” or upgraded condition with the same warranty as a new product (CRR).
Reconditioning restores a product functionally to as-new or almost as-new condition but may not
come with a warranty that matches a new product (Gray et al., 2007).
Repair is to rectify fault in order to extend the service life of a product while remanufacturing
establishes its next full new lifecycle (Gray et al., 2007).
Remanufacturing steps generally include core collection (core is the term used to describe an
EoL/EoU product or part, which becomes the main input of remanufacturing), inspection,
disassembly, cleaning, reprocessing, reassembly and testing. The significant strength of ResCoM
is that it ensures the quantity, quality and timing of cores by integrating product design, business
model design and closed loop supply chain management (Rashid et al., 2013). As a result,
remanufacturing can be well-planed and well-performed by OEMs. In contrast, the conventional
remanufacturing is performed unplanned since remanufacturing workshop cannot get the
information on the quantity, quality and timing of returned cores in advance. The functions of
product design, business model design and closed loop supply chain management, as well as the
mutual interdependence, interactions, feedback and causalities among them will be elaborated
later on.
Product Design for ResCoM
Besides fulfilling the conventional design requirements, e.g. functionality, quality, aesthetic etc.,
as the first step of ResCoM product design must ensure that a product is designed to facilitates
remanufacturing, closed loop supply chain operation for product delivery and core collection, as
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well as to be consistent with business model to meet the market demand and ensure the quantity,
quality and collection timing of cores.
Product design aims at multiple lifecycles with predefined EoL strategy for each and overall
lifecycles (Rashid et al., 2013). ResCoM proposes a nomenclature for MLP, namely, the MLP is
branded as Resource Conservative Product (RCP), and each lifecycle of RCP is labeled with
Resource Conservation Level (RCLi, where i= 0,1,2…RCL0 represents RCP in its first lifecycle)
(Asif et al., 2012; Rashid et al., 2013). Determining the optimum number of lifecycles and the core
collection intervals of a MLP is one of the most important tasks of product design for ResCoM. It
is a complex decision-making procedure which needs to take into account, e.g. cost, value-added,
environmental impacts and energy consumption in each lifecycle and overall lifecycles. Product’s
optimum number of lifecycles and predefined core collection intervals are the fundamental
information for business model design and close loop supply chain management. Note that by
applying this design approach the quantities, and timing of cores, which are considered as the
crucial factors of the closed loop manufacturing system, can be predicted within a range. In
addition, product design has to consider adding smart component (by applying PEID) to keep
track of product’s usage, record and update the information of the product in each lifecycle. Thus,
the identification and traceability of a MLP over its whole lifecycles can be realized by adopting
the nomenclature for MLP and smart embedded component.
The product design determines two thirds of the remanufacturability of a product (Steinhilper,
1998). A number of design methodologies therefore can be applied to support product design for
ResCoM. Methodologies for remanufacturing summarized by Gray et al. (2007) includes Design
for Core Collection, Eco-Design, Design for Disassembly, Design for Upgrade, Design for
Evaluation etc.
Business Model for ResCoM
For ResCoM, a strong relationship between OEMs and customers is required to be established to
make sure the customers accept and support the promoting of MLP. Business model in ResCoM is
described as Figure 3-2 (Asif et al., 2012; Rashid et al. 2013).
Product agreement contract has to be generated between OEMs and customers to stipulate the
product-related service and cores return. Seven types of relationships between manufacturer and
customer for core collection were elaborated and compared by Östlin et al. (2008b). These
relationships are ownership-based, service-contract, direct-order, deposit-based, credit-based, buy-
back, and voluntary-based. Product Service system (PSS) (Oksana et al., 2006) attracts more and
more researchers recent years is a business model based on service-contract relationship. In PSS,
manufacturer sells the performance of a product instead of selling the ownership of the product to
customer, thus the manufacturer keeps the ownership of the product throughout its lifecycles.
However, determining the business model for ResCoM is also a decision-making procedure which
needs to be integrated with product design to analyze and compare the benefits that each business
model contributes on resource conservation, environment protection, profitability, the customers’
involvements and feasibility of closed loop supply chain management etc. Three types of
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integrations of product design and business model for mobile phone were investigated, compared
and evaluated by CRR (CRR report). Therefore, a simulation and evaluation system for assessing
business model is also an important topic in ResCoM developing.
Figure 3-2. The ResCoM business model RCP: Resource Conservative Product; RCL: Resource
Conservation Level; RCL0 is the new RCP (in its 1st designed lifecycle) with resource
conservation level zero; RCLi is the RCP with resource conservation level i = 1, 2, 3…i.e. the RCP
is in its 2nd
, 3rd
, 4th
…designed lifecycle. The dotted lines represent the information communication.
Closed Loop Supply Chain for ResCoM
An ideal closed loop supply chain is a key element to successfully implement MLP. Closed loop
supply chain in ResCoM is defined as following (Asif et al. 2012),
The design, control, and operation of a system to maximize value creation over the entire life cycle
of a product with dynamic recovery of value from different types and volumes of returns over time.
Closed loop supply chain consists of forward supply chain and reverse supply chain, where
“forward” means the flow of material from suppliers all the way to end customers and “reverse”
means flow of product back to manufactures (Ferguson et al., 2010).
Note that forward supply chain in ResCoM does not only arrange product delivery to customer,
but also cooperates with business model i.e. it has to be appropriately changed to keep consistent
with the business models. On the other hand, since cores are regarded as “raw material” for
remanufacturing, the efficiency and reliability of core collection determines if remanufacturing
can be proceeded smoothly. Closed loop supply chain for ResCoM aims to solve the uncertainties
of quantities, qualities and timing of returned cores in collaboration with product design and
business model. As a result, remanufacturing can be well-organized and controlled, which solves
the overproduction or insufficient production problems caused by the conflict between normal
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manufacturing and unplanned remanufacturing. Since product design has predefined optimum
number of lifecycles and the core collection intervals for MLP, the quality and timing of returned
cores are controlled in certain range. By establishing optimal business model to clear define the
relationship with customers, the quantity of returned cores can be also predicted. However, the
quality of cores is also depended on the working conditions and maintenance etc. Closed loop
supply chain therefore has to keep track of the usage of the product to check if the product runs
out of the predefined working condition. In general, reverse supply chain is responsible for
effective collection of cores and the usage data and lifecycle information of the cores.
3.2.2 Information model for MLP manufacturing
As mentioned, this research is started by looking into PLCS standard and its corresponding
software tools, so to find out the requirements of current and new systems, constraints, resources,
conditions, and problems. That is, to find the detailed differences between the current Share-A-
Space and the desired ResCoM PLM, and analyse how Share-A-Space can be improved for
ResCoM PLM.
The most important part of this thesis work is to create an information model for elaborating MLP.
A coherent set of critical activities for implementing MLP should be presented through activity
models. Activity model shows what information of MLP manufacturing activities will be
generated, shared, and how the information is updated and integrated throughout the overall
product lifecycles. It provides a general vision for managing product-related information
throughout the whole lifecycles of a MLP.
In this thesis, IDEF0 is adopted for information modelling. IDEF0 is a method developed to model
decisions, actions and activities of an organization or a system. It is widely used at the first stage
of a system development, since it could facilitate the analysis of the functions of a system through
structured and concise graphical language. IDEF0 uses top-down decomposition hierarchy to
elaborate a complex system from the general to the specific, from a single top-level context
diagram that represents an entire system to more sub-diagrams that explain more details on how
the subsections of the system work (Kassem et al., 2011) (A brief introduction of IDEF0 is
available in Appendix II).
Product design, business model, closed loop supply chain management and
remanufacturing/manufacturing are highlighted as the critical activities of MLP manufacturing.
Therefore those four activities and the mutual interdependence, interactions, feedback and
causalities among them are the objects of our IDEF0 modelling. The MLP manufacturing system
is constructed by four hierarchies and described by IDEF0 syntax (see the whole model in
Appendix III and glossary of the model in Appendix IV).
Top-level: A-0 diagram MLP Manufacturing System
A-0 diagram is a special case of IDEF0 context diagram which represents the entire system. It
includes ICOMs (inputs, controls, outputs, and mechanisms) along with the statements of model
purpose and viewpoint (shown in Figure 3-3). The purpose of the A-0 diagram of MLP
25
manufacturing system is to elaborate the MLP manufacturing system from the holistic view of
implementing the concept for OEMs.
A-0
A0
A1 A2 A3
A1-1 A1-2 A1-3
MLP Manufacturing System
MLP manufacturing
Product & Business
model design Manufacturing
/Remanufacturing
Closed loop
supply chain
Product strategy
establishingBusiness model
formulatingConceptual
design
A0
Multiple Lifecycle Product
Manufacturing
Legislations Company strategies
Society’s grown demands
Demand for economic growth
Demand for resource conservation
Environmental concerns
Economic growth
New jobs
Improved Living standards
Resource conservation
Supplier
Purpose: To elaborate Multiple Lifecycle Product
Manufacturing System from implementing perspective of
the critical activities: remanufacturing, MLP design, closed
loop supply chain, and business model.
Viewpoint: Original equipment manufacturer (OEM)
Industrial standards
Environmental protection
Resource crisis
Konwledge of MLP concept
OEMCustomer
Systems
Market investigation
Innovative technologies
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 1A-0 Multiple Lifecycle Product Manufacturing System
Inputs Outputs
Controls
Mechanisms
Figure 3-3. IDEF0 A-0 diagram MLP Manufacturing System
Inputs show four vital motivations that trigger MLP manufacturing system. Resource conservation
means saving raw material, energy and value added of a product. Environmental concerns are on
demand of less emission and solid waste during manufacturing and at a product’s EoL or EoU.
Economic growth, including winning more market share, higher profit and lower cost, is the main
incentive for OEMs to accept and actively participate in MLP. At the same time, manufacturing
should meet society’s grown demands on the quantity and quality of products, which are raised
respectively by the population boost and consumers’ increased demand on higher living standard.
Controls include six important constrains or guidance to regulate and guide MLP manufacturing.
MLP manufacturing activities should comply with series of legislations, such as Landfill Directive,
Waster Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive, and End of Life Vehicle (ELV)
Directives. However, MLP manufacturing is the proactive action rather than a reaction to the
26
legislations for resource conservation and environmental protection. Thus, the company should
define a corresponding strategy for MLP manufacturing, and add this strategy as part of the
company’s long-term vision and core value. As a result, MLP manufacturing activities will be
performed under the control of companies’ strategies. Final product of MLP manufacturing has to
meet the industrial standards, such as ISO 9000 Quality Standard and other criteria. Furthermore,
the success of MLP manufacturing greatly depends on the promoting of MLP manufacturing
concept within manufacturer from top managers down to each operator, its suppliers, partners and
customers.
Mechanisms present five main resources for supporting the MLP manufacturing. Since the product
is expected to be returned for remanufacturing at the end of each lifecycle of a MLP, the
involvement and support of the OEMs and customers are the prerequisites (Rashid et al., 2013) for
implementing MLP. Supplier is responsible for providing raw materials or sub-parts to OEMs. In
addition, remanufacturing activities, such as core collection, disassembly, cleaning and
reprocessing, have to be supported by innovative technologies (i.e. technologies facilitates cores
collection, disassembly, cleaning, and reprocessing without damage). MLP is implemented by a set
of collaborative activities among different departments (marketing department, design department,
purchasing department, and manufacturing department etc.) of the OEMs, supplier and customers,
thereby information management system plays an important role for storing and exchanging
information, making decisions, and managing MLP lifecycles.
Outputs show the outcomes of performing MLP. Ideal results of well-performed MLP should
include the contribution to economic growth, resource conservation, environmental protection,
improved living standards, and more job opportunities.
2nd
level: A0 diagram MLP manufacturing
On the 2nd
level, A0 diagram shown in Figure 3-4 is the sub-diagram of A-0 diagram. It describes
the four critical activities of implementing MLP: A1 Product & business model design, A2
Manufacturing/Remanufacturing, A3 Closed loop supply chain operation, and A4 Customer
usage/order. The material and information flows and interconnection of each activity are clear
presented. The reverse flows of material and information are marked in red to explicitly outline
the closed loop flows in MLP manufacturing system.
Product design and business model design is the first stage of MLP manufacturing. Since
product design has a strong relationship with business model design, they are described as an
integrating activity from a holistic view. As shown in Figure 3-4, product and model design is
triggered by market demand from customer. As a result, it provides the design information, such
as drawings, specifications, disassembly instructions, definitions of product lifecycles, etc., to
control the product manufacturing and remanufacturing. It also provides core collection policy and
plan to guide the closed loop supply chain operation and to define the customer’s responsibility to
return the cores. Product and model design is constrained and controlled by legislations (mainly
environmental legislations), market investigation, knowledge of MLP concept (e.g. design
methodologies), and company strategy. The major participants of the activities are the personnel
27
of the manufacturer (described as “company” in the model). Customers are also important
participants, since they reflect their needs on a product which will become the primary concerns in
the product and business model design.
A-0
A0
A1 A2 A3
A1-1 A1-2 A1-3
MLP Manufacturing System
MLP manufacturing
Product & Business
model design Manufacturing
/Remanufacturing
Closed loop
supply chain
operation
Product strategy
establishingBusiness model
formulatingConceptual
design
Recyclable parts
A2
Manufacturing/ Remanufacturing
A1
Product & Business model
design
A3
Closed loop supply chain
operation
A4
Customer usage/order
Company strategy
Market investigation
Konwledge of MLP concept
Legislations
Design information
Production plan
Production documents
Core collection policy & plan
Raw material New product & Product data
Routing guide
Forward/Reverse Supply chain plan
New/Renew product & Warranty
– company forward supply chainCores & data
Usage data
Customer order
Supplier
CompanyCustomer
System
Market demand
Request for returning cores
Cores - company reverse supply chain
Innovative Technologies
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 2A0 Multiple Lifecycle Product manufacturing
Material processing
Renew product & updated product data
Unrecyclable partsTreatment & Disposal
Figure 3-4. IDEF0 A0 diagram MLP manufacturing
Furthermore, systems such as information management system, MLP lifecycles assessment system,
business model simulation and evaluation system are the strong support for product and business
model design. This activity plays the most important role in the system, since it enables the OEM
having the strong ability to control the product throughout its whole lifecycles by predefining the
number of the product lifecycles, core collection intervals, and the relationships with the
customers. It will be expended into more details in sub-diagrams on the 3rd
and 4th
levels of the
model.
Manufacturing and remanufacturing are the fundamental activities of MLP manufacturing.
Manufacturing is triggered by customer’s order with raw material as input, while for
remanufacturing returned cores and cores-related usage data and life cycles’ information are the
28
main inputs. Outputs are physical products and product-related lifecycles information.
Manufacturing/remanufacturing is constrained by legislations, production documents (e.g. process
control, operation instruction, quality control etc.) and design information provided by product and
business model design. Besides, manufacturing/remanufacturing has to be conducted by closed
loop supply chain management since closed loop supply chain operation decides the timing of
product delivery and core collection, that is, it decides the schedule for manufacturing and
remanufacturing. Additionally, innovative technologies (i.e. technologies facilitates cores
collection, disassembly, cleaning, and reprocessing without damage) are the core support for
remanufacturing.
Closed loop supply chain operation keeps the close connection between manufacturers and
customers. Forward supply chain responds to customer’s order on product, and provides product
delivery schedule and production plan to manufacturing/remanufacturing. It also informs the
timing of product delivery, and finally hands in the product with warranty to customer. Note that
both new product (the product in its first lifecycle, i.e. named as RCL0 product by ResCoM) and
renewed product (the product in its 2nd
, 3rd
and so on lifecycles, i.e. named as RCL1,2… product by
ResCoM) are sold to the same market, which means when the supply chain operation makes the
production plan for manufacturing and remanufacturing, should always keep in mind to balance
the manufacturing and remanufacturing with the purposes to reduce the inventory level of cores
and avoid overproduction. While reverse supply chain takes customer’s request for returning the
cores according to the core collection policy and plan predefined by product and business model
design. It also informs the timing of core collection to customer and remanufacturing, and takes
the cores back. Moreover, since the quality of core is also depended on the working conditions and
maintenance etc., closed loop supply chain operation therefore has to keep track of the usage of
the product and collect the usage data from customer to adjust the core collection schedule
according to specified conditions.
Customer usage/order is considered as one of the important parts of MLP manufacturing.
Customers in MLP manufacturing system play two important roles: users and “suppliers”. As
users, they express their preferences on the product including appearance, functionality, service
etc., which directly affects the product and business model design. As suppliers, customers’
behaviours directly determine if the product can be collected back for remanufacturing. As shown
in figure 3-4, the activity of customer usage/order generates multiple reverse material and
information flows for closing the manufacturing system. If this part is out of control, consequently
the entire MLP system might collapse. That is the reason that MLP manufacturing emphases on
the integration of product design, business model design, and closed loop supply chain operation
in order to monitor and control the product usage as well as keep the close interactions with
customers.
3rd
level: A1 diagram Product & Business model design, A2.1 diagram Manufacturing, A2.2
diagram Remanufacturing, and A3 diagram Closed loop supply chain operation
On the 3rd
level, the activities performed by OEMs will be decomposed into details which give
readers detail views on how to carry out each of the activities step by step.
29
A1 diagram Product & Business model design
A1 diagram shown in Figure 3-5 is the sub-diagram of A1 activity in A0 diagram. It is comprised
by fives detail activities for implementing product and business model design: A1-1 Product
strategy establishing, A1-2 Business model formulating, A1-3 Conceptual design, A1-4
Embodiment design and evaluating, and A1-5 Detail design and review.
A-0
A0
A1 A2 A3
A1-1 A1-2 A1-3
MLP Manufacturing System
MLP manufacturing
Product & Business
model design Manufacturing
/Remanufacturing
Closed loop
supply chain
operation
Product strategy
establishingBusiness model
formulatingConceptual
design
A1-1
Product strategy
establishing
A1-2
Business model
formulating
A1-3
Conceptual design
A1-4
Embodiment design &
evaluating
A1-5
Detail design & review
Company strategy
Market investigation
Strategic vision on resource conservation & environment protection
Product specifications
Legislations
Department
Design guidelines
Preliminarydesign scenarios
MLP lifecycles assessment criteriai.e. technical, resource conservative, environmental and economic criteria
Drawing standards
Definitive layout
Manufacturing
Remanufacturing
Design information
Predicted core collection intervals
Tools
QFD
Market demand
Marketing&
Sales department
IT tools&
Eco design tools
System
MLP lifecycles assessment system
Design department
Marketingdepartment
Konwledge of MLP concept
Changerequest
Product proposal
Changerequest
BM simulation &evaluation system
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 3A1 Product & Business model design
Core collection policy
Figure 3-5. IDEF0 A1 diagram Product & Business model design
Establishing product strategy is the decisive activity to deploy MLP since product strategy
forms the ultimate vision of a product, which draws the direction that the efforts should be put on.
It is activated by the market demand, and its performance has to keep compliance with company
strategy, legislations, market investigation and MLP concept. Product strategy aims to outline the
product proposal as the inputs for both product and business model design. It also defines the
product features, functions and specifications in a general way to conduct the product design.
When establishing a product strategy OEMs have to do a series of rigorous market investigation
30
and analysis, accordingly a series of concrete activities should be carried out. A1-1 activity will
break down into further details on the 4th
level.
Business model formulating and conceptual design can be performed in parallel as soon as
product proposal has been put forward. Notably, they should keep consistent with each other:
conceptual design defines the optimum numbers of product’s lifecycles and predicted core
collection interval, which constrains how the business model should be formulated and how to
define the core collection policy with customer; on the other hand, the business model defines the
core collection way which requires that product design takes into account e.g. intellectual property
protection of a product. Besides, different combinations of business models and product designs
have varied contributions to resource conservation, environment protection and economic benefit
(CRR report); therefore a comprehensive evaluation of business model and product design is
needed in order to find out the optimal combination for each concrete case. A1-2 and A1-3
activities are regarded as the key factors that determine the success of MLP, and will also be
extended into more details on the 4th
level.
Preliminary design comes out from conceptual design and becomes the input of embodiment
design and evaluating. After that, detail design and review follows. The final output is the design
information for manufacturing/remanufacturing (A1-4 and A1-5 activities are similar to ordinary
processes of conventional product design, thus explications of those two activities are not included
in this thesis).
A2.1 diagram Manufacturing and A2.2 diagram Remanufacturing
A2.1 diagram (Figure 3-6) and A2.2 diagram (Figure 3-7) are the sub-diagrams of A2 activity in
A0 diagram.
Manufacturing diagram (Figure 3-6) describes the manufacturing (named as RCL0 production
by ResCoM) processes of new product which is labelled as RCP with RCL0 by ResCoM. It
follows the same procedures as conventional manufacturing i.e. from raw materials to final
product, thus explication of manufacturing activities is not included in this thesis.
Remanufacturing diagram (Figure 3-7) maps a basic remanufacturing (named as RCLi
production by ResCoM) processes of remanufactured product (the product is labelled as RCP with
RCLi by ResCoM, where i = 1,2,3….i.e. RCP in its 2nd
, 3rd
, 4th
…designed lifecycles). The
sequence of the processes may be changed from one product to another (Sundin, 2004). Returned
core is the main input of remanufacturing, thus the implementation of remanufacturing relies on
the returned core, core’s data, design information and innovative technologies.
Inspection
When the cores are returned, incoming inspection is responsible for checking out the record of
critical parameters that determine the products’/parts’ lifecycle, diagnosing the
fault of the product, reporting the condition of the incoming cores, and judging appropriate
methods for remanufacturing (product in different lifecycles/condition might be for example
31
cleaned and reprocessed by different methods). Inspection is conducted according to the design
information, such as the predefined quality and functionality standards for each lifecycle of the
returned cores, and the procedures and standard of inspection operation.
A-0
A0
A1 A2 A3
A1-1 A1-2 A1-3
MLP Manufacturing System
MLP manufacturing
Product & Business
model design Manufacturing
/Remanufacturing
Closed loop
supply chain
operation
Product strategy
establishingBusiness model
formulatingConceptual
design
A2-1
Raw material acquiring
A2-2
Parts processing
A2-3
Product assembly
A2-4
Testing
Company order
Production plan
Suppliers
Material ordering system
Legislations
Product/Part specifications
Inventory level
DepartmentMachines/
tools/fixtures
Raw material
Objective criteria
Instruction/SOP
Process control
New parts
New product Package & Sale
New product
Documentation
Product information
DisassemblyPurchasing department
Manufacturing department
Assembly department
QC/QA department
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 4A2.1 Manufacturing (for new product)
Customer order
Figure 3-6. IDEF0 A2.1 diagram Manufacturing
Disassembly and sorting
The inspected cores will be disassembled down to single part level which is a main challenge of
remanufacturing, since this operation has to disassemble all the parts without any damages. This is
the reason that design for disassembly is stressed at the design phase. Besides, OEMs are
encouraged to explore innovative disassembly technologies and methods (Lambert, 2002) for
remanufacturing. The disassembled parts will later be generally sorted into four categories
according to their qualities and treatment methods:
Reusable part can be used directly again in a product’s next lifecycle after it has been used in
the product’s previous lifecycle.
32
A-0
A0
A1 A2 A3
A1-1 A1-2 A1-3
MLP Manufacturing System
MLP manufacturing
Product & Business
model design Manufacturing
/Remanufacturing
Closed loop
supply chain
operation
Product strategy
establishingBusiness model
formulatingConceptual
design
Clean reconditionable
parts
Reconditionable parts
A2-3
Cleaning
A2-4
Parts reprocessing
A2-5
Product reassembly
A2-6
Testing
Remanufacture department
Objective criteria
Instruction/SOP
Process control Product/Part specifications
Diagnoses information
Recyclable parts
Reusable parts
Unrecyclable parts
Clean reusable
parts
Renew parts
New spare parts
Renew product
Machines/tools/fixtures
Package & Sale
Identified appropriate methods for remanufacturing
Innovative technologies
Unqualified product
Parts specifications
Current product specifications
Material processing
Treatment & Disposal
Returned cores
& Cores’data
Test report & updated product
data
Documentation
Inspected cores
A2-2
Disassembly & Sorting
A2-1
Inspection
Renew product with warranty
(same as new product)
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 5A2.2 Remanufacturing (for renew product)
Figure 3-7. IDEF0 A2.2 diagram Remanufacturing
Reconditionable part can be returned into like-new or better parts with warranty to match by
part reprocessing.
Recyclable part cannot be reused or reconditioned, however it can be returned to raw materials
by material processing.
Unrecyclable part reaches its EoL and the materials of the part cannot be reprocessed into raw
material, thus the part needs to be disposed to landfill.
Cleaning
In order to guarantee the like-new appearances of reusable and recyclable parts, cleaning
operations including de-greasing, de-oiling, de-rusting and de-painting etc. are applied. In contrast
to first-manufactured product cleaning for cores puts higher demands on innovative cleaning
technologies for remanufacturing.
Parts reprocessing
33
Reprocessing is the essential operation to give rebirths to the reconditionable parts with original
warranty, namely, it enables the used parts to meet the original specifications of the first-
manufactured parts. Remanufacturability of a part depends on the design (in terms of shape,
selection of materials and so on) of the part and the available remanufacturing technology.
Product reassembly
Reassembly is the final operation to endue a product with another new lifecycle. In this operation,
all qualified renew parts (reprocessed parts), cleaned reusable parts, and new spare parts are
assembled according to current product specifications. Sometimes the product might be
reassembled with upgrade requirement, thus corresponding upgrade parts should be supplemented.
Testing
Remanufacturing is defined to return an EoL/EoU product into a like-new product with warranty
to match. Thus the same testing operation (functional inspection or test run of each product) and
quality standards of first-manufactured product have to be applied to the remanufactured product.
Testing provides the certifications for the remanufactured product, by this way the OEM promises
customer that a remanufactured product is as good as or even better than the first-manufactured
product. After testing, remanufactured products are labelled with new RCLi, at the same time the
information stored in the smart component which keeps track of the product’s usage and
information of previous lifecycles, is updated with the remanufactured and redistributed
information.
A3 diagram Closed loop supply chain operation
A3 diagram shown in Figure 3-8 is the sub-diagram of A3 activity in A0 diagram. It outlines the
close interactions and relationships between supplier, OEM and customer, and reveals the closed
loop flows of materials and information among them. In general, the closed loop supply chain
operation is constructed by three activities: A3-1 Raw material acquiring, A3-2 Closed loop
supply chain operation, A3-3 Customer usage/order.
Closed loop supply chain operating is activated by customers’ order on new product. Forward
supply chain sends raw material order to suppliers, releases the production plan for manufacturing,
and informs product delivery plan to customers. When new product manufacturing is done, the
product will be delivered to customers as planned. The shipments and the delivered new products’
information are logged. The responsibilities of closed loop supply chain operation are more than
delivering the new products to customers.
Closed loop supply chain schemes products delivery to customers, and cores collection from
customers back to OEM. ResCoM highlights that OEM leads MLP manufacturing throughout the
entire lifecycles of the product; the first-manufactured products and remanufactured products are
sold in the same market without any difference. In this context, seamless closed loop supply chain
is one of the strongest tools to support MLP manufacturing. With the purpose of collecting cores
34
A-0
A0
A1 A2 A3
A1-1 A1-2 A1-3
MLP Manufacturing System
MLP manufacturing
Product & Business
model design Manufacturing
/Remanufacturing
Closed loop
supply chain
operation
Product strategy
establishingBusiness model
formulatingConceptual
design
A3-1
Raw material acquiring
A3-2
Closed loop supply chain
operating
A3-3
Customer usage/order
Inventory level
Legislations
Company policy
Company’s order
Supplier shipment
Routing guide
Supplier supply chain plan
Company forward/reverse supply chain plan
New/Renew product & Warranty
– company forward supply chain
Forward/reverse shipment & MLP information
Usage data
Customer’s order
Request for returning recalled product
Recalled product - company reverse supply chain
Production plan for manufacturing/remanufacturing
Company supply chain system
Information management system
Supplier’s supplier
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 6A3 Closed loop supply chain operation
Konwledge of MLP
Core collection policy
Recalled product
Figure 3-8. IDEF0 A3 diagram Closed loop supply chain operation
back to OEM for remanufacturing, reverse supply chain has to monitor the usages of the products
which are the data basis for judging the timing of cores collection. Normally, if a product serves
under predefined work environment, it should be collected back to OEM according to the
predefined core collection interval which is listed in the core collection agreement between OEM
and customer. However, exceptions are unavoidable which means sometimes the product has to be
collected earlier or later than the predefined core collection interval (depending on the actual
usage of the product). Thus, reverse supply chain has to integrate the predefined core collection
interval and actual usage to adjust the core collection plan, and arrange remanufacturing.
Thorough plans have to be made for remanufacturing, which include, but not limited to,
considerations on how many raw materials are needed for replenishing new spare parts to replace
the unrecyclable (disposed to landfill) and recyclable (return into raw material) parts for
remanufacturing, how to balance manufacturing (for new product) and remanufacturing (for renew
product) to meet the customers’ demands as well as keep the inventory level of new products and
cores as lower as possible.
35
4th
level: A1-1 diagram Product strategy establishing, A1-2 diagram Business model
formulating and A1-3 diagram Conceptual design
On the 4th
level, the activities of product strategy establishing, business model formulating and
conceptual design (A1-1, A1-2, A1-3 activity in A1 diagram) are elaborated with more details to
dig out their deeper significances to MLP.
A1-1 diagram Product strategy establishing
A1-1 diagram shown in Figure 3-9 is the sub-diagram of A1-1 activity in A1 diagram.
A-0
A0
A1 A2 A3
A1-1 A1-2 A1-3
MLP Manufacturing System
MLP manufacturing
Product & Business
model design Manufacturing
/Remanufacturing
Closed loop
supply chain
Product strategy
establishingBusiness model
formulatingConceptual
design
A1-1-2
Define MLP/service
A1-1-1
Set key measurable
objectives of MLP
A1-1-3
MLP positioning
Company strategy
Legislations
Konwledge of MLP concept
Strategic vision on MLP manufacturing
Internal & External idea sources
Target of MLP manufacturing
Company’s strengths & weakness
Competitors’performance
Technology support
A1-1-4
Plan strategic
action
Business model formulating
Conceptual design
MLP
description
ChangerequestMLP’s features
& functions& specifications
Positioning
statement
Tools/Techniques
Department
Customer
MLP management team
Scorecard
Marketing and R&D
department
QFD
Cross-functional team
Survey& statistictechniques
Information management system
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 7A1-1 Product strategy establishing
MLP proposal
Figure 3-9. IDEF0 A1-1 diagram Product strategy establishing
“Set key measurable objectives of MLP” links the objectives and motivations of MLP into
product strategy which is the constitution of the series of activities for implementing MLP.
Therefore strategic vision on resource conservation and environment protection becomes an
indispensable part of a company’s vision. A MLP management team is necessary for decision-
36
making, leading, managing, and controlling MLP manufacturing on the top-level. An explicit
target of MLP manufacturing has to be defined for each type of product, and MLP management
team could adopt different tools e.g. KPIs to evaluate the success of MLP manufacturing, i.e. KPI
of resource conservation, environmental protection and economic growth.
“Define MLP/service” draws the outline of a product, i.e. MLP’s general features, functions, and
specifications. Ideals on a new product could be generated from internal sources, such as research
and development department, or other personnel, and also could be motivated by external ideal
sources such as customers’ requirements, market investigation, and competitors.
“MLP positioning” carries out systematic analyses for finalizing the MLP strategy, including
analyses of company’s own strengths and weakness, competitors’ performance, and marketing.
Positioning of MLP is the key factor which determines if the MLP manufacturing can succeed.
Positioning statement, which declares target customer, market share, product differentiation etc., is
released after analysing. Meantime, the outline of the product might need to be revised to keep in
line with the product positioning.
“MLP strategic action” accepts the MLP description and positioning statement, plans
corresponding strategic actions, and at the end finalizes the MLP proposal for conceptual design
and business model formulating.
A1-2 diagram Business model formulating
A1-2 diagram shown in Figure 3-10 is the sub-diagram of A1-2 activity in A1 diagram.
“Identify target customer’s needs on different levels of the product” aims to extract target
customers’ fundamental needs on the product. Kotler et al. (2005) suggested that viewing a
product on three levels, i.e. core product, actual product, and augmented product, will help
company extract all the benefits that the product offers. Taking a car as an example, the core
product is the transportation, the actual product is the brand, appearance, and design of the car and
the augmented product is the after-sale services, insurance policy etc. Thus, identifying customers’
underlying needs helps a company to easily formulate the correct business models, e.g. PSS is
formulated based on identifying that the customer’s underlying need is the core product instead of
owning an actual product.
“Formulate customer relationship” defines the relationship between OEM and customer. This
relationship states: the product or service with warranty that a company offers; company’s
responsibility to the product-related service; customer’s responsibility for updating the usage data
as necessary and returning the cores for remanufacturing; core collection way (e.g. single part
collection, modular collection, whole product etc.). The type of relationship is constrained by the
customer’s attitude towards MLP, certainty of cores’ quantities and qualities, as well as predicted
core collection intervals from conceptual design. Thus, when OEM chooses the type of
relationship with its customers, it has to take into account: core collection ratio (how many cores
could be collected back as planned), accessibility and controllability to the product usage,
operability and practicability for closed loop supply chain to deliver products and collect cores.
37
A-0
A0
A1 A2 A3
A1-1 A1-2 A1-3
MLP Manufacturing System
MLP manufacturing
Product & Business
model design Manufacturing
/Remanufacturing
Closed loop
supply chain
Product strategy
establishingBusiness model
formulatingConceptual
design
A1-2-3
Design closed-loop supply
chains
A1-2-2
Formulate customer
relationships
A1-2-4
Test & Evaluate business models
A1-2-1
Identify target customer's needs on
different levels of the product
BM scenarios
Product proposal
Product delivery & core collection
scenarios
The optimal BM
Core collection policy
Market research
Customer’s feedback
Customer’s attitude towards MLP
Certainty of core collection & core quality
Conceptual design
Conceptual design
Usage data
collection
Flexibility & Efficiency Integrated Criteria
Core collection way
Techniques/IT tools
Department
Customer
Predicted core collection intervals
Changerequest
Marketing&
Sales department
Survey& statistictechniques
System
Information management system
Sales department
Cross-functional team
InformationManagement
system
IT tools
BM simulation &evaluation system
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 8A1-2 Business model fomulating
Customer’s
detail needs
Figure 3-10. IDEF0 A1-2 diagram Business model formulating
Once the relationships have been defined between OEMs and customers, the product delivery and
core collection scenarios are generated as the results which become the input of closed loop supply
chain design (A1-2-3 activity). The main concerns of the closed loop supply chain design are
flexibility and efficiency of product delivery and core collection.
Final step of business model formulating is testing and evaluating the business model by business
model simulation and evaluation system. The test result should conform to the integrated criteria:
product take-back ratio and rate, profitability, efficiency of product delivery and core collection,
customer satisfaction etc. If the test result is unsatisfied, change request should be sent back to
relationships formulating and closed loop supply chain design until the optimal business model is
achieved the best test result. Consequently, the core collection policy between OEM and customer
is also established.
A1-3 diagram Conceptual design
38
A1-3 diagram shown in Figure 3-11 is the sub-diagram of A1-3 activity in A1 diagram.
A-0
A0
A1 A2 A3
A1-1 A1-2 A1-3
MLP Manufacturing System
MLP manufacturing
Product & Business
model design Manufacturing
/Remanufacturing
Closed loop
supply chain
Product strategy
establishingBusiness model
formulatingConceptual
design
A1-3-1
Design the framwork of
product & partsMLP proposal
A1-3-2
Determine the optimum number
of lifecycle for product/part
A1-3-3
Refine the designs for
Reman, BM & CLSCM
A1-3-4
Evaluate the conceptual
design (prototyping/simulation)
Defined conceptual design
Reviewed conceptual design
Preliminarydesign scenarios
Embodiment design & evaluating
Business model
Business model
Materials & technologies
Decisive factorsi.e. cost, value added, environment & Energy
Conceptualdesign draft
MLP design checklist/criteria
MLP lifecycles assessment criteriai.e. technical, resource conservative, environmental and economic criteria
Guidelines
Product specifications
Core collection way
Predicted core collection intervals
Change request
Change request
Changerequest
Designdepartment Tools
Information Management
/analysis system
Cross-functionalteam
IT tools&
Eco design tools
MLP lifecycles assessment system
Product lifecycle simulation system
Materials handbook
IT tools&
Eco design tools
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 9A1-3 Conceptual design
Figure 3-11. IDEF0 A1-3 diagram Conceptual design
Conceptual design for MLP is a radical reform for industrial manufacturing. By reviewing the-
state-of-art, one can find out that there are lots of design methodologies available for
remanufacturing, however those methodologies do not take into account MLP, and the integration
of business model and close loop supply chain operation. On the contrary, the significance of
conceptual design for MLP greatly solves the uncertainty problem of cores’ quantities, qualities
and timing by predefining the optimum number of lifecycles of product and parts (A1-3-2 activity
Determine the optimum number of lifecycles for product/part). The optimum number of
lifecycles of a product and parts is determined by a combination of factors, i.e. whether the
remanufacturing of product can still make (at least) tolerant contribution to cost, value added
recapturing, environmental protection and resource conservation. Conceptual design, first and
foremost, should always keep the principles that the product design has to facilitate
remanufacturing, business model and closed loop supply chain operation (A1-3-3 activity Refine
39
the design for remanufacturing, business model and closed loop supply chain) which is the
essence for building up a seamless closed loop manufacturing system for resource conservation
and environmental protection. The last activity (A1-3-4 activity Evaluate the conceptual design)
is to primarily evaluate the conceptual design by making prototype or creating models.
40
4 Conclusion
4.1 Conclusion and discussion
As it is today, there is no practical concept for Multiple Lifecycle Product (MLP) that has been
implemented in industries. In this thesis work, developments within terminologies, definitions and
processes regarding MLP have been carried out. However, since MLP is a huge area, the focus of
the thesis work is on information flow and management.
In order to cope with the resource and ecologic crises, as well as keep economic growth within
manufacturing industry, the concept of Multiple Lifecycle Product (MLP) and Resource
Conservative Manufacturing (ResCoM) are put forward. They are vital principles in resource
management for future availability of resources; however, it is vital to understand the finer
concepts of these elements before they are implemented. For instance, if OEMs and consumers are
not made to understand how the MLP manufacturing system operates and how the system will
help them, they are likely to decline the system entirely. Moreover, lack of clear means of
collecting the used products from the consumers and taking back the same to them will erode the
entire MLP closed loop system. Therefore, before initiating and implementing MLP it will be vital
for the involved parties and the business chain to understand the concepts and the procedures to
implement the concepts.
Unlike the single life cycle manufacturing or the conventional closed loop manufacturing systems
where products are designed with single lifecycle, namely, manufactured, used, and thrown away,
MLP is designed to be manufactured and remanufactured with the aim of using a product for
multiple times aiming for zero waste in the end. In this research we develop and redefine those
concepts for creating a seamless closed loop manufacturing system. In this thesis, we clarify the
features of MLP as following:
Product is designed with predefined optimum number of lifecycles and core collection
intervals;
Product can be identified and traced over its whole lifecycles by applying MLP nomenclature
and PEID;
MLP manufacturing system emphasizes on finding a balance point of environmental benefit,
resources conservation, and economic growth;
Product’s multiple lifecycles are well-designed, visible and controllable by integrating
product design, predefined loop closing strategies, closed loop supply chain and customer’s
involvement.
Remanufacturing and closed loop manufacturing have appeared and even applied in practice for a
decade, however, ResCoM as the corresponding manufacturing system for MLP compared to
conventional closed loop manufacturing system proposed in the state-of-the-art possesses the
following features:
Products designed for multiple lifecycles with predefined lifecycle management strategies;
41
Based on an ideal closed loop supply chain where forward and reverse manufacturing are
conducted in single OEM, and both new and remanufactured product are sold to the same
market;
A well-designed and rigorous system integrates product design for MLP, business model, and
closed loop supply chain;
Customer’s involvement is considered as the prerequisite for implementing MLP.
Different from most of the previous researches on sustainable manufacturing which only stare at
only one part (e.g. product design, supply chain etc.) of the manufacturing system, MLP and
ResCoM are the system innovations. However, currently MLP and ResCoM are still in the
theoretical stage, more statistics evidences are needed to prove that MLP and ResCoM are feasible,
authoritative and beneficial. Thus, first of all relevant information management system,
assessment tools and systems have to be developed. At the same time, design methodologies,
business model research, and closed loop supply chain investigation should be carried out. Once
every part of the system is prepared, case studies will be proceeded. Lots of challenges can be
predicted, such as the technical challenge on Product Data Technology to achieve seamless
interoperability of systems and exchange Dynamic Product Data. There are apparently also a great
number of unknown problems and challenges ahead.
As the “first movers”, we regard the research of ResCoM PLM as one of the most important
tributaries of MLP, since it will provide a platform for collaborative information management and
product multiple lifecycles management. We corporate with Eurostep for develop the ResCoM
PLM system which is a new strategic approach to manage product-related information efficiently
over the whole lifecycles of the product from concept to the end of life. The research is started by
looking into PLCS standard and its corresponding software tools, since it extends traditional PLM
to aftermarket tills the product are out of use. With the aim to monitor and control MLP
manufacturing, first and foremost, the essential activities, their interactions for implementing MLP,
as well as the main data and information flows for conducting those activities are identified by
activities modelling. Product design, business design, closed loop supply chain management and
remanufacturing/manufacturing are highlighted as the critical activities of implementing MLP.
Therefore those four activities and the mutual interdependence, interactions, feedback and
causalities among them are the objects of IDEF0 modelling. Comprehensive understanding of
MLP manufacturing helps ResCoM PLM researchers to recognize the research issues. However,
since MLP manufacturing activities encompasses all areas of industrial enterprise, including
product strategy, business model, closed loop supply chain, manufacturing, remanufacturing etc.,
it is difficult to have a comprehensive understanding of them all without examining each of them
into details with practices. Thus the activities models of MLP might have limitations, and would
be improved and refined when we have more learning and discoveries. The following step of
ResCoM PLM will try to find the detailed differences between the current Share-A-Space and the
desired ResCoM PLM, and analyse how Share-A-space can be improved for ResCoM PLM.
42
4.2 Achievement
4.2.1 Establish concepts and terminologies in the area of PLM for MLP
In this thesis, we put forward a new concept - MLP to save the raw materials, energy, value-added
and eco-system without compromising economic growth. We also introduce a new strategy for
implementing MLP, which emphasizes on integrating product design, business model, closed loop
supply chain and remanufacturing for creating a seamless closed loop manufacturing system. The
achievement of this thesis work is closely connected to the research objectives. As the solutions to
resource and ecological crises, MLP and ResCoM are introduced by review and define
terminologies, develop definitions and process with focus on information flow and management.
In order to present the concept of MLP and put industrial work toward the same goal with
collaboration and good communication, an introduction with significant concepts and
terminologies are necessary. This thesis work has not only summarized the existing concepts, but
also defined terminologies, developed definitions and processes.
4.2.2 Establishing the framework and foundation of ResCoM PLM
The implementation of MLP encompasses a series of collaborative work among different
stakeholders, formulating the closing loop strategies is a complicated decision-making process,
and the lifecycles management of MLP are much complicated than current single lifecycle
management. All those require a new information communication and management platform as
the strong support for implementing MLP, which could enable information exchanging with high
efficiency, accuracy and security during the collaborative work among different organizations.
And it should also provide solutions for managing the multiple lifecycles of the product, for
example, how an operator can identify a product in its different lifecycles, and get to know the
histories of a product. To develop a new information management system is the most important
part of this thesis. Through establishing the concepts, terminologies and creating information
model of MLP, we established the framework and foundation for the next step research of PLM
for MLP. The information model of MLP is the main contribution of this thesis work, which is
the general model which can be adopted by all OEMs, and has following functions:
Help the PLM researches to understand the procedures to implement MLP, so that they could
identify the issues of PLM for MLP research and develop a corresponding PLM for MLP;
Help the OEMs to understand how to implement MLP step by step, so that they want to
accept and implement the concept for their product;
Help the future users of ResCoM PLM to understand the scope, information requirements
and usage scenarios of the system.
In addition, together with the terminologies and information modelling, the developed
methodology of how should diverse stakeholders collaborate has also been discussed.
43
4.3 Future Work
ResCoM PLM will be proceeded in the following years at Eurostep. The future research aims to
find out the detailed differences between the current Share-A-Space and the desired ResCoM PLM
by following the below steps:
Define associations between the concepts of ResCoM PLM as a high level UML class (domain)
diagram
Relate the concepts of the model to the PLCS PSM model and its information classes
Test the established domain model on Eurostep Share-A-space.
And then, the research will investigate how Share-A-Space can be improved for ResCoM PLM.
At the latter stage, validation and testing of ResCoM PLM will be proceeded with case study from
OEMs that have interest in MLP and ResCoM PLM to check if ResCoM PLM is adequate to
implement MLP. In a long term, hopefully a new closed-loop PLM standard can be established.
44
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Appendix I. Terminology of Multiple Lifecycle Product System
1. Basic concepts
Sustainability
Brundtland report defines sustainability as:” the ability of current generations to meet their needs
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”
[The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union (2003): Directive 2002/98/EC
of the European Parliament and of the Council on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment
(WEEE), Brussels, 2003]
Product lifecycle
The concept of product lifecycle can simply be explained as follows: the lifecycle of a product
(that contains more than one part) is generally equal to the lifecycle of the component that has the
shortest life.
［Farazee MA A, Camine B, Amir R, Cornel M N. (2012). Performance analysis of the closed
loop supply chain. Journal of Remanufacturing.］
Multiple lifecycle product
A product is designed for using multiples times with predefined numbers of life cycles and
working intervals (the service time of each lifecycle), and its rebirths are achieved by a rigorously
designed closed loop manufacturing system where product design, close loop supply chain,
business model and remanufacturing are systematically integrated.
Close loop on material flow for multiple lifecycle products
［Nasr, Nabil and Thurston, Michael. (2006). Remanufacturing: A Key Enabler to Sustainable
Product Systems. Rochester Institute of Technology.］
System dynamics is a method to enhance learning in the complex system which is grounded in
the theory of nonlinear dynamics and feedback control developed in mathematics, physics, and
engineering.
51
［Farazee MA A, Camine B, Amir R, Cornel M N. (2012). Performance analysis of the closed
loop supply chain. Journal of Remanufacturing.］
Resource Conservative Manufacturing (ResCoM)
A strategic model which emphasizes conservation of resources through product’s multiple life
cycles by product design, incorporating supply chain and business model and by integrating
Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), consumers and other relevant stakeholders.
Resources conservative manufacturing system seeks to optimize material and energy usage in
manufacturing, use phase and end of use and value recovery from the product at the end of life.
［Farazee MA A, Camine B, Amir R, Cornel M N. (2012). Performance analysis of the closed
loop supply chain. Journal of Remanufacturing.］
2. Remanufacture for multiple lifecycle
Remanufacturing
The process of returning a used product to at least Original Equipment Manufacturer performance
specification and giving the resultant product a warranty that is at least equal to that of newly
manufactured equivalent.
[Ijomah, W.L. A model-based definition of the generic remanufacturing business
process.University of Plymouth, 2002.]
Remanufacture
A series of manufacturing steps acting on an end-of-life (EoL) part or product in order to return it
to like-new or better performance, with warranty to match.
［Centre for Remanufacturing and Reuse (CRR)］
Synonyms
• Re-manufacture
• Second-life production (‘3rd life’ etc. up to ‘nth life’ may also be used)
• Repetitive manufacture
• Asset Recovery
• Asset Regeneration
• Inverse manufacture (Japan)
• Produktrecycling (Germany)
• Rénovation (France)
［Gasper Gray, Martin Charter. (2007). Remanufacturing and product design; Designing
for the 7th
Generation. UK］
Remanufacture VS recycling/reuse/recondition/repair
Recycling returns a used product to raw materials to reduce the consumption of fresh raw
materials, energy usage, air pollution from incineration and water pollution from landfilling. In
52
contrast, remanufacturing is a process of capturing the value added to the material when a
product was first manufactured.
Reuse is to directly use a product again after it has been used. The product keeps the same
condition as it acquired for reuse while remanufacture returns a used product to “good as new”
condition.
Reconditioning restores a product functionally to as-new or almost as-new condition but may
not come with a warranty that matches a new product.
Repair is to rectify fault in order to extend the useful life of a product while remanufacturing
establishes its next full life cycle.
［Steinhilper, Rolf. (1998). Remanufacturing; The Ultimate Form of Recycling. Germany:
Druckerei Hoffman.］
［Gasper Gray, Martin Charter. (2007). Remanufacturing and product design; Designing for the
7th
Generation. UK］
Remanufacturing process
• Collection of core
• Inspection and identification of faults
• Disassembly of whole product
• Cleaning of all parts (and storage)
• Reconditioning of parts (and replacement with new parts where required)
• Reassembly of product
• Testing to verify the product functions as a new product
Core
Used products or old units, which are the main input or raw material of the remanufacturing
industry.
［Gasper Gray, Martin Charter. (2007). Remanufacturing and product design; Designing for the
7th
Generation. UK］
3. Product design for multiple lifecycle
Product design for multiple lifecycle
A combination of design processes whereby an item is designed to facilitate remanufacture,
reverse logistics as well as to conform to business model. Design for multiple lifecycles suggests
designing with a product’s end-of-life in mind.
Product design for multiple lifecycle on two levels
• Product strategy, including sales, marketing, service support, reverse logistics/core collection.
• Detailed product design and engineering, including core collection and functional design.
53
［Gasper Gray, Martin Charter. (2007). Remanufacturing and product design; Designing for the
7th
Generation. UK］
Design methodology for multiple lifecycle
Design for Core Collection-build mechanisms into the product or component to ensure the return
of cores.
Modularization
Modularization is the structuring of a product into modules and the specification of module
interfaces. A module may be a single part or an assembly of many parts with certain
functionality. Modules can be independently created and then used in different products to
drive multiple functionalities.
［Seliger G, Zettl M. (2008). Modularization as an enabler for cycle economy. Annals of CIRP –
Manufacturing Technology. 75, pp.133-136.］
Modularization for parts reuse
Modularization proves to be a chance for increasing the use productivity of resources by
enabling multiple usage phases sometimes even in different applications. Modular
decomposition is a means of optimizing dismantling and modular products can improve
material recovery by module configurations separating recyclable and non-recyclable.
［ Agard, B., Tollenaere, M. (2001). Design of assembly for mass customization.
Mecanique&Industries, 3, pp.113-119］
Eco-Design- focus on the integration of environmental considerations into product development,
including improving materials’ and energy efficiency, reducing land and eliminating hazardous
materials.
Design for Disassembly (re-assembly)-reduce time required for disassembly and assembly, and
enable the removal of parts without damage.
Incomplete disassembly
Irreversible connections and economic constraints since the costs of dismantling are inversely
proportional to the profits generated by the reuse of the disassembled components.
[Lambert A. J. D. (2002). Determining Optimum Disassembly Sequences In Electronic
Equipment Computers & Industrial Engineering, 43, pp.553-575.]
Design for Remanufacturing Process-specify materials and forms appropriate for repetitive
remanufacture e.g. cleaning and reconditioning.
54
Design for Reliability- design product to communicate to the user or manufacturer when testing or
check-ups are required.
Design for Upgrade-define an optimum life; this could be an optimum time for a product to return
to remanufacture or an optimum time due to functional or aesthetic obsolescence.
Design for Evaluation- check out a product’s current status and history in order to apply
appropriate methods for remanufacturing.
4. Closed-loop supply chains for multiple lifecycle
Supply chain management
Supply chain management (SCM) is the combination of art and science that goes into improving
the way your company finds the raw components it needs to make a product or service and deliver
it to customers.
[Thomas Wailgum. (2007). Supply Chain Management Definition and Solutions. CIO, (accessed:
Mar, 2013)
http://www.cio.com/article/40940/Supply_Chain_Management_Definition_and_Solutions?page=1
&taxonomyId=3207 ]
Closed loop supply chain management
The design, control, and operation of a system to maximize value creation over the entire life
cycle of a product with dynamic recovery of value from different types and volumes of returns
over time.
［Farazee MA A, Camine B, Amir R, Cornel M N. (2012). Performance analysis of the closed
loop supply chain. Journal of Remanufacturing.］
Closed-loop supply chains
Closed-loop supply chains are supply chains where, in addition to the typical “forward “flow of
materials from suppliers all the way to end customers, there are flows of products back (post-
consumer touch or use) to manufacturers.
［Mark F, Gilvan C S. (2010). Closed loop supply Chains; New developments to improve the
sustainability of Business Practices. U.S.］
Synonyms
• Reverse logistics
• Reverse supply chain
5. Business model for multiple lifecycle
Ownership-based business model
Adopt the product service system, i.e., sell ‘performance’ of a product by leasing the product.
Product service system (PSS)
Provide services that satisfy customers, that is, shift from selling products to selling
‘performance’. Therefore, products are treated as capital assets rather than as consumables.
55
Buyback/Incentive business model
Manufacturers get cores back by buying used products back from the consumers, or manufactures
offer incentives to consumers to get cores back.
ResCoM business model
RCL: Resource Conservation Level
RCP: Resource Conservative Product
RCL0 is the new RCP product with resource conservation level zero;
RCLi is the RCP with resource conservation level i = 1, 2, 3.
［Farazee MA A, Camine B, Amir R, Cornel M N. (2012). Performance analysis of the closed
loop supply chain. Journal of Remanufacturing.］
56
Appendix II. Introduction of IDEF0
IDEF0 is a method developed to model the decisions, actions and activities of an organization or
system. It originated in the US Air Force Integrated Computer Aided Manufacturing (ICAM)
Program from the structured analysis and design technique (SADT) (Al-Turki et al., 2010). IDEF0
is widely used at the first stage of a system development, since it could facilitate analysis of the
functions of a system through structured and concise graphical language.
Context diagram
IDEF0 describes a system as a series of linked activities, and each activity is represented by a verb
phrase within an activity box, and specified by four elements: inputs, controls, outputs, and
mechanisms (ICOMs) (Colquhoun et al., 1993). ICOMs are used to describe the relationships and
interactions among activities.
Figure 1. IDEF0 activity box and elements
• Inputs: Requirements or materials that trigger the activity
• Control: Guide or regulate the activity under specified conditions
• Mechanism: Resources used to carry out the activity, such as people, systems, equipment.
• Output: Results of performing the activity
Decomposition diagrams
Normally a diagram (except the top-level A-0 diagram) consists of three to six activity boxes. In
order to elaborate a complex system into more details as necessary, decomposition hierarchy is
used by IDEF0 (Kim et al., 2003). Decomposition diagrams of a model are shown in Figure 2.
IDEF0 model is comprised of a hierarchy of linked diagrams. Each diagram is identified by the
node number which defines the position of the diagram in the hierarchy of a model.
Glossary of IDEF0 model
Since IDEF0 model elaborates a system in concise graphical language, it makes only the domain
experts can understand. The glossary of a IDEF0 model, although not a mandatory element,
provides an excellent basis for better understanding of the model. In this research, glossary of
IDEF0 model of MLP manufacturing system is added in Appendix IV.
57
Figure 2. IDEF0 Decomposition
References
Al-Turki, A. and Faris, W.F. (2010). Modelling manufacturing process using a modified IDEF0
framework: a case study of a car door manufacturing plant. Int. J. Engineering Systems
Modelling and Simulation, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp.234–241
Colquhoun, G.J, Baines, R.W, Crossley, R. (1993). A State of the Art Review of IDEF0.
International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, Vol. 6, No. 4, 1993, pp. 252-264
Kim, CH., Weston, R.H., Hodgson, A., Lee, KH. (2003). The complementary use of IDEF and
UML modeling approaches. Computers in Industry 50, 35-56
A 0
M u l t i p l e L i f e c y c l e P r o d u c t
M a n u f a c t u r i n g
Legislations
Company strategies
Society’s grown demands
Demand for economic growth
Demand for resource conservation
Environmental concerns
Economic growth
New jobs
Improved Living standards
Resource conservation
Supplier
Purpose: To elaborate a multiple lifecycle product manufacturing system from the critical perspectives of remanufacturing, MLP design, closed loop supply chain, and business model .Viewpoint: Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)
Industrial standards
Environmental protection
Resource crisis
Konwledge of MLP concept
OEM
Customer
Systems
Market investigation
Innovative technologies
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 1A-0 Multiple Lifecycle Product Manufacturing System
A1-1
Product strategy
establishing
A1-2
Business model
formulating
A1-3
Conceptual design
A1-4
Embodiment design &
evaluating
A1-5
Detail design & review
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 3A1 Product & Business model design
A2-1
Raw material acquiring
A2-2
Parts processing
A2-3
Product assembly
A2-4
Testing
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 4A2.1 Manufacturing (for new product)
A3-1
Raw material acquiring
A3-2
Closed loop supply chain
operating
A3-3
Customer usage/order
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 6A3 Closed loop supply chain operation
A2-1
Inspection
A2-2
Disassembly& Sorting
A2-3
Cleaning
A2-4
Parts reprocessing
A2-5
Product reassembly
A2-6
Testing
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 5A2.2 Remanufacturing (for renew product)
A1-1-2
Define MLP/service
A1-1-1
Set key measurable objectives of
MLP
A1-1-3
MLP positioning
A1-1-4
Plan strategic action
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 7A1-1 Product strategy establishing
A1-2-3
Design closed-loop supply
chains
A1-2-2
Formulate customer
relationships
A1-2-4
Test & Evaluate business models
A1-2-1
Identify target customer's needs
on different levels of the
product
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 8A1-2 Business model fomulating
A1-3-1
Design the framwork of product &
parts
A1-3-2
Determine the optimum
number of lifecycle for
product/part
A1-3-3
Refine the designs for
Reman, BM & CLSCM
A1-3-4
Evaluate the conceptual
design (prototyping/
simulation)
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 9A1-3 Conceptual design
A2
Manufacturing/ Remanufacturing
A1
Product & Business model
design
A3
Closed loop supply chain
operation
A4
Customer usage/order
TITLE:NODE: NO.: 2A0 Multiple Lifecycle Product manufacturing
. Appendix III. IDEFO Diagram of Multiple Lifecycle Product
Manufacturing System
A-0
A0
A1 A2 A3
A1-1 A1-2 A1-3
MLP Manufacturing System
MLP manufacturing
Product & Business
model design Manufacturing/
Remanufacturing
Closed loop
supply chain
operation
Product strategy
establishing Business model
formulating
Conceptual design
A0
Mu
ltip
le
Lif
ecy
cle
P
ro
du
ct
Ma
nu
fa
ctu
rin
g
Legi
slat
ion
s C
om
pan
y st
rate
gie
s
Soci
ety’
s gr
ow
n d
em
and
s
De
man
d f
or
eco
no
mic
gro
wth
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man
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or
reso
urc
e c
on
serv
atio
n
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ron
me
nta
l co
nce
rns
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no
mic
gro
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w jo
bs
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rove
d L
ivin
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and
ard
s
Re
sou
rce
co
nse
rvat
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Sup
plie
r
Pu
rpo
se:
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ltip
le L
ife
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e P
rod
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rin
g Sy
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m f
rom
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ers
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e o
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e c
riti
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s:
rem
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fact
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ng,
MLP
de
sign
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sed
loo
p s
up
ply
ch
ain
, an
d
bu
sin
ess
mo
de
l.V
iew
po
int:
Ori
gin
al e
qu
ipm
en
t m
anu
fact
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r (O
EM)
Ind
ust
rial
st
and
ard
s
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ron
me
nta
l pro
tect
ion
Re
sou
rce
cr
isis K
on
wle
dge
of
MLP
co
nce
pt
OEM
Cu
sto
me
r
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em
s
Mar
ket
inve
stig
atio
n
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ova
tive
te
chn
olo
gie
s
TITL
E:N
OD
E:
NO
.:1
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ltip
le L
ife
cycl
e P
rod
uct
Man
ufa
ctu
rin
g Sy
ste
m
Re
cycl
able
par
ts
A2
Man
ufa
ctu
rin
g/
Re
man
ufa
ctu
rin
g
A1
Pro
du
ct &
B
usi
ne
ss m
od
el
de
sign
A3
Clo
sed
loo
p
sup
ply
ch
ain
o
pe
rati
on
A4
Cu
sto
me
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sage
/ord
er
Co
mp
any
stra
tegy
Mar
ket
inve
stig
atio
nK
on
wle
dge
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MLP
co
nce
pt
Legi
slat
ion
s
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sign
info
rmat
ion
Pro
du
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n p
lan
Pro
du
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n
do
cum
en
ts
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re c
olle
ctio
n p
olic
y &
pla
n
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mat
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alN
ew
pro
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ct &
P
rod
uct
dat
a
Ro
uti
ng
guid
e
Forw
ard
/Re
vers
e S
up
ply
ch
ain
pla
n
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w/R
en
ew
pro
du
ct &
War
ran
ty
– c
om
pan
y fo
rwar
d s
up
ply
ch
ain
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res
& d
ata
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ge d
ata
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sto
me
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r
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mp
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sto
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em
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man
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est
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res
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mp
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e P
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ctu
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g
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roce
ssin
g
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ne
w p
rod
uct
&
up
dat
ed
pro
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ct d
ata
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recy
clab
le p
arts
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atm
en
t &
Dis
po
sal
A1
-1
Pro
du
ct
stra
tegy
e
stab
lish
ing
A1
-2
Bu
sin
ess
m
od
el
form
ula
tin
g
A1
-3
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nce
ptu
al
de
sign
A1
-4
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od
ime
nt
de
sign
&
eva
luat
ing
A1
-5
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tail
de
sign
&
re
vie
w
Co
mp
any
stra
tegyM
arke
t in
vest
igat
ion
Stra
tegi
c vi
sio
n o
n
reso
urc
e c
on
serv
atio
n &
e
nvi
ron
me
nt
pro
tect
ion
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du
ct s
pe
cifi
cati
on
s
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slat
ion
s
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par
tme
nt
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sign
gu
ide
line
s
Pre
limin
ary
de
sign
sc
en
ario
sMLP
life
cycl
es
asse
ssm
en
t cr
ite
ria
i.e
. te
chn
ical
, re
sou
rce
co
nse
rvat
ive
, e
nvi
ron
me
nta
l an
d e
con
om
ic c
rite
ria
Dra
win
g st
and
ard
s
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fin
itiv
e
layo
ut
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ufa
ctu
rin
g
Re
man
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ctu
rin
g
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sign
in
form
atio
n
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dic
ted
co
re
colle
ctio
n in
terv
als
Too
lsQFD
Mar
ket
de
man
d
Mar
keti
ng
&Sa
les
de
par
tme
nt
IT t
oo
ls&
Ec
o d
esi
gn t
oo
ls
Syst
em
MLP
life
cycl
es
asse
ssm
en
t sy
ste
m
De
sign
de
par
tme
nt
Mar
keti
ng
de
par
tme
nt
Ko
nw
led
ge o
f M
LP c
on
cep
t
Ch
ange
req
ue
st
Pro
du
ct
pro
po
sal
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ange
req
ue
st
BM
sim
ula
tio
n &
eva
luat
ion
sys
tem
TITL
E:N
OD
E:
NO
.:3
A1
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ct &
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sin
ess
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de
l de
sign
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re c
olle
ctio
n p
olic
y
A2
-1
Raw
m
ate
rial
ac
qu
irin
g
A2
-2
Par
ts
pro
cess
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A2
-3
Pro
du
ct
asse
mb
ly
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-4
Test
ing
Co
mp
any
ord
er
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n
pla
n
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rs Mat
eri
al
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em
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slat
ion
s
Pro
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ct/P
art
spe
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cati
on
s
Inve
nto
ry le
vel
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par
tme
nt
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hin
es/
to
ols
/fix
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s
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mat
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ive
cr
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ria
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ruct
ion
/SO
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ss
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l
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w p
arts
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kage
&
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lyP
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ep
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en
t
Ass
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/QA
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par
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TITL
E:N
OD
E:
NO
.:4
A2
.1M
anu
fact
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ng
(fo
r n
ew
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du
ct)
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sto
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an
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nd
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le
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ts
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A2
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Par
ts
rep
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g
A2
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sem
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Test
ing
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man
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re
de
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ruct
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/SO
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roce
ss c
on
tro
l P
rod
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/Par
t sp
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fica
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ns
Dia
gno
ses
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rmat
ion
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cycl
able
par
ts
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usa
ble
p
arts
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recy
clab
le
par
ts
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an
reu
sab
le
par
ts
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ne
w
par
ts
Ne
w
spar
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ne
w
pro
du
ct
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hin
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too
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fixt
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s
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kage
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eth
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s fo
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man
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Inn
ova
tive
te
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gie
s
Un
qu
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on
s
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ct s
pe
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on
s
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al
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cess
ing
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atm
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t &
Dis
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sal
Re
turn
ed
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& C
ore
s’d
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Test
re
po
rt &
u
pd
ate
d p
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d
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Do
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on
Insp
ect
ed
co
res
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Dis
asse
mb
ly
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ort
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A2
-1
Insp
ect
ion
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ne
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w
ith
war
ran
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sam
e a
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du
ct)
TITL
E:N
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E:
NO
.:5
A2
.2R
em
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(fo
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ne
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)
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-1
Raw
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uir
ing
A3
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sed
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ain
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ng
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Cu
sto
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er
Inve
nto
ry le
vel
Legi
slat
ion
s
Co
mp
any
po
licy
Co
mp
any’
s o
rde
r
Sup
plie
r sh
ipm
en
t
Ro
uti
ng
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e
Sup
plie
r su
pp
ly c
hai
n p
lan
Co
mp
any
forw
ard
/re
vers
e s
up
ply
ch
ain
pla
n
Ne
w/R
en
ew
pro
du
ct &
War
ran
ty
– c
om
pan
y fo
rwar
d s
up
ply
ch
ain
Forw
ard
/re
vers
e s
hip
me
nt
& M
LP in
form
atio
n
Usa
ge d
ata
Cu
sto
me
r’s
ord
er
Re
qu
est
fo
r re
turn
ing
reca
lled
pro
du
ct
Re
calle
d p
rod
uct
- c
om
pan
y re
vers
e s
up
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ch
ain
Pro
du
ctio
n p
lan
fo
r m
anu
fact
uri
ng/
rem
anu
fact
uri
ng
Co
mp
any
sup
ply
ch
ain
sys
tem
Info
rmat
ion
m
anag
em
en
t sy
ste
m
Sup
plie
r’s
sup
plie
r
TITL
E:N
OD
E:
NO
.:6
A3
Clo
sed
loo
p s
up
ply
ch
ain
op
era
tio
n
Ko
nw
led
ge o
f M
LP
Co
re c
olle
ctio
n p
olic
y
Re
calle
d p
rod
uct
A1
-1-2
De
fin
e M
LP/
serv
ice
A1
-1-1
Set
key
me
asu
rab
le
ob
ject
ive
s o
f M
LP
A1
-1-3
MLP
p
osi
tio
nin
g
Co
mp
any
stra
tegy
Legi
slat
ion
s
Ko
nw
led
ge o
f M
LP c
on
cep
t
Stra
tegi
c vi
sio
n o
n
MLP
man
ufa
ctu
rin
g
Inte
rnal
& E
xte
rnal
id
ea
sou
rce
s
Targ
et
of
MLP
man
ufa
ctu
rin
g
Co
mp
any’
s st
ren
gth
s &
we
akn
ess
Co
mp
eti
tors’
pe
rfo
rman
ce
Tech
no
logy
su
pp
ort
A1
-1-4
Pla
n
stra
tegi
c ac
tio
n
Bu
sin
ess
mo
de
l fo
rmu
lati
ng
Co
nce
ptu
al
de
sign
MLP
de
scri
pti
on
Ch
ange
req
ue
stM
LP’
s fe
atu
res
& f
un
ctio
ns
& s
pe
cifi
cati
on
s
Po
siti
on
ing
stat
em
en
t
Too
ls/T
ech
niq
ue
s
De
par
tme
nt
Cu
sto
me
r
MLP
m
anag
em
en
t te
am
Sco
reca
rd
Mar
keti
ng
and
R&
Dd
ep
artm
en
t
QFD C
ross
-fu
nct
ion
al
team
Surv
ey
& s
tati
stic
tech
niq
ue
s
Info
rmat
ion
man
age
me
nt
syst
em
TITL
E:N
OD
E:
NO
.:7
A1
-1P
rod
uct
str
ate
gy e
stab
lish
ing
MLP
p
rop
osa
l
A1
-2-3
De
sign
clo
sed
-lo
op
su
pp
ly
chai
ns
A1
-2-2
Form
ula
te
cust
om
er
rela
tio
nsh
ips
A1
-2-4
Test
&
Eval
uat
e
bu
sin
ess
m
od
els
A1
-2-1
Ide
nti
fy t
arge
t cu
sto
me
r's
ne
ed
s o
n
dif
fere
nt
leve
ls
of
the
pro
du
ct
BM
sc
en
ario
s
Pro
du
ct
pro
po
sal
Pro
du
ct d
eliv
ery
&
core
co
llect
ion
sc
en
ario
s
The
op
tim
al B
M
Co
re c
olle
ctio
n
po
licy
Mar
ket
rese
arch
Cu
sto
me
r’s
fee
db
ack
Cu
sto
me
r’s
atti
tud
e
tow
ard
s M
LP
Ce
rtai
nty
of
core
co
llect
ion
&
co
re q
ual
ity
Co
nce
ptu
al
de
sign
Co
nce
ptu
al
de
sign
Usa
ge d
ata
colle
ctio
n
Fle
xib
ility
&
Effi
cie
ncy
Inte
grat
ed
Cri
teri
a
Co
re c
olle
ctio
n w
ay
Tech
niq
ue
s/I
T to
ols
De
par
tme
nt
Cu
sto
me
r
Pre
dic
ted
co
re
colle
ctio
n in
terv
als
Ch
ange
req
ue
stM
arke
tin
g&
Sale
s d
ep
artm
en
t
Surv
ey
& s
tati
stic
tech
niq
ue
s Sy
ste
m
Info
rmat
ion
m
anag
em
en
t sy
ste
m
Sale
s d
ep
artm
en
t
Cro
ss-f
un
ctio
nal
te
am
Info
rmat
ion
Man
age
me
nt
syst
em
IT
too
ls
BM
sim
ula
tio
n &
eva
luat
ion
sys
tem
TITL
E:N
OD
E:
NO
.:8
A1
-2B
usi
ne
ss m
od
el f
om
ula
tin
g
Cu
sto
me
r’s
de
tail
ne
ed
s
A1
-3-1
De
sign
th
e
fram
wo
rk o
f p
rod
uct
& p
arts
MLP
pro
po
sal
A1
-3-2
De
term
ine
th
e
op
tim
um
nu
mb
er
of
life
cycl
e f
or
pro
du
ct/p
art
A1
-3-3
Re
fin
e t
he
d
esi
gns
for
Re
man
, BM
&
CLS
CM
A1
-3-4
Eval
uat
e t
he
co
nce
ptu
al
de
sign
(p
roto
typ
ing
/sim
ula
tio
n)
De
fin
ed
co
nce
ptu
al
de
sign
Re
vie
we
d
con
cep
tual
d
esi
gn
Pre
limin
ary
de
sign
sce
nar
ios
Emb
od
ime
nt
de
sign
&
eva
luat
ing
Bu
sin
ess
m
od
el
Bu
sin
ess
m
od
el
Mat
eri
als
&
tech
no
logi
es
De
cisi
ve f
acto
rsi.
e. c
ost
, val
ue
ad
de
d,
en
viro
nm
en
t &
En
erg
y
Co
nce
ptu
ald
esi
gn
dra
ft
MLP
de
sign
ch
eck
list/
crit
eri
a
MLP
life
cycl
es
asse
ssm
en
t cr
ite
ria
i.e
. te
chn
ical
, re
sou
rce
co
nse
rvat
ive
, en
viro
nm
en
tal a
nd
e
con
om
ic c
rite
ria
Gu
ide
line
s Pro
du
ct
spe
cifi
cati
on
sC
ore
co
llect
ion
w
ay
Pre
dic
ted
co
re
colle
ctio
n in
terv
als
Ch
ange
re
qu
est
Ch
ange
re
qu
est
Ch
ange
req
ue
st
De
sign
de
par
tme
nt
Too
lsIn
form
atio
n
Man
age
me
nt
/an
alys
is s
yste
m
Cro
ss-f
un
ctio
nal
team
IT t
oo
ls&
Ec
o d
esi
gn t
oo
ls
MLP
life
cycl
es
asse
ssm
en
t sy
ste
m
Pro
du
ct li
fecy
cle
si
mu
lati
on
sys
tem
Mat
eri
als
han
db
oo
k
IT t
oo
ls&
Ec
o d
esi
gn t
oo
ls
TITL
E:N
OD
E:
NO
.:9
A1
-3C
on
cep
tual
de
sign
68
Appendix IV: Glossary of MLP IDEF0 model
1. Multiple Lifecycle Product (MLP) manufacturing
A resource conservation approach which enable a product be used multiple times (each time is
considered as a lifecycle of the product), with product design, remanufacturing, closed loop supply
chain, and business model as the enabling tools.
Society’s grown demands/Improved living standards
a) Population boost
b) Pursue higher living standard (quality, safety, functionality, environmental friendly etc.)
Demand for economic growth/ Economic growth
a) More market share
b) Higher profit
c) Lower cost
Demand for resource conservation/resource conservation
a) Raw material
b) Energy
c) Value recovery (in terms of labor, machine, overhead etc.)
Environmental concerns/Environmental protection
a) Less emission (greenhouse gas, wastewater etc.)
b) Less waste (solid waste during manufacturing and at a product’s EoL (End of Life))
Legislations
Landfill Directive, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive, Restriction of
Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Derective, End of Life Vehicle (ELV) Directive, Energy-related-
Products (ErP) Directive.
Company strategies
Product strategy, Technology strategy, Company positioning strategy etc.
Industrial standards
ISO 9000 Quality Standard, QS 9000 certification and other criteria.
Resource crisis
Nature resource availability including minerals, land, freshwater, forests etc.
69
Knowledge of MLP concept
Knowledge of the definition and structure of MLP manufacturing system, as well as knowledge of
approaches and procedures to implement MLP manufacturing.
Market investigation
Customers’ attitude, requirements and demand towards remanufactured product
Supplier, Original Equipment Manufacturer, Customer
To ensure core returns, some sort of agreement between OEMs, consumers and remanufacturers is
needed to be established.
Systems/Information systems
a) MLP lifecycles assessment system
To assess a product’s suitability for remanufacturing, all technical, resource conservative,
economic and environmental factors will influence the decision and have to be taken into
consideration.
Remanufacturing Technical Criteria (diversity of materials and parts, feasibility for
disassembly, cleaning, testing, reconditioning)
Quantitative Criteria (amount of returning products, timely and regional accessibility...)
Value Criteria (value added and recovery from material/energy/ production / assembly)
Time Criteria (optimum number of lifecycles, predicted core collection intervals...)
Innovation Criteria (technical progress regarding new products vs. remanufactured
products...)
Disposal Criteria (efforts and cost of alternative processes to recycle the products and
possible hazardous components...)
Criteria Regarding Interference with New Manufacturing (competition or cooperation with
OEM`s ...)
Other Criteria (market behavior, liabilities, patents, intellectual property rights...)
b) MLP manufacturing and information management system
MLP design
MLP manufacturing and remanufacturing planning and control
MLP closed loop supply chain planning and management
MLP lifecycles tracking system (keep a record of critical parameters that determine
components’/products’ lifecycle e.g. number of revolutions, loads, operating temperature
etc.)
Innovative technology
Technologies facilitates cores collection, disassembly, cleaning, and reprocessing without damage.
70
Core: Used products or old units, which are the main input or raw material of the
remanufacturing industry.
2. Product design (Product design for MLP)
Design requirements
Extended product durability
Adding intelligence for monitoring critical lifecycle parameters
Adding information storage mechanism (e.g. RFID)
Conventional design requirements (functionality, performance, quality, aesthetic,
ergonomic etc.)
Design guidelines/methodologies
Design for core collection (e.g. modularization)
Eco-Design/DfE （Design for environment）
Design for X ( X means disassembly/re-assembly, reprocessing , reliability, upgrade,
evaluation)
Conventional design guidelines/methodologies (e.g. design for manufacturing, assembly)
IT tools and Eco design tools
IT tools : design software
Eco design tools: refer to [Bovea, M.D., Pérez-Belis, V. (2012). A taxonomy of ecodesign
tools for integrating environmental requirements into the product design process. Journal
of Cleaner Production 20 (2012) 61-71]
Design documents
a) Design documents for manufacturing
Product/part specification (materials, drawings, part list)
Production, assembly, transport and operating instructions
Quality control criteria for new product
b) Design documents for remanufacturing
Product/part specification (optimum number of lifecycles, predicted core collection
intervals, materials, drawings, part list)
Core collection, inspection, disassembly, sorting, remanufacturing, reassembly, transport
and operation instructions
Objective criteria: Quality inspection checklist and criteria, sorting criteria for returned
cores, and quality control criteria for new product.
Strategic version on MLP manufacturing
71
Strategic vision on resource conservation and environment protection
Measurable objectives of MLP
Use KPIs to evaluate the success of MLP manufacturing, i.e. KPI of resource conservation,
environment impact index and economic growth.
Internal and external ideal sources
Internal ideal sources could be ideals on new product from research and development department,
or other personnel.
External ideal sources could be ideals on new product from customers’ requirements, market
investigation, or competitors.
Positioning statement
Positioning statement includes, but not limited to, target customer, market share, product
differentiation.
3. Business Model (BM)
Core collection policy & plan
Agreement between OEMs, consumers and remanufacturers regarding core returns which
defines such as the service support items, core collection interval and method.
Profitability
Analyzing and comparing the profit and loss of BM scenarios to choose the best one.
Three levels of a product
Core Product: the benefit of the product that makes it valuable to customer
Actual Product: the tangible, physical product
Augmented Product: the additional non tangible benefits that a product can offer
In case of a car, the 3 levels of a product are:
Core product : Transportation from one place to another.
Actual Product : Brand of the car, looks and design of the car etc.
Augmented Product : After-sale services, insurance policy etc.
4. Manufacturing process (for new product)
New product
72
A new product means that all the components of the product are made by raw materials,
and is at the start of its first lifecycle, having several lifecycles ahead.
Production documents
Product/part specifications and Bill of Material (BoM)
Production planning (schedule, quantity, facilitates etc.)
Process control (parameter, procedure etc.)
Operation instruction/SOP
Criteria (quality control and other criteria)
Product data
Product/parts spec., warranty, optimum number of life cycle of product/parts, predicted
collection intervals of product, critical parameters that determine product’s/part’s lifecycle,
remanufacturing records etc.
Usage data: record of critical parameters that determine product’s/part’s lifecycle
5. Closed loop supply chain operation
Closed-loop supply chains are supply chains where, in addition to the typical “forward “flow of
materials from suppliers all the way to end customers (forward supply chain), there are flows of
products back (post-consumer touch or use) to manufacturers (reverse supply chain).
Supply chain plan
Forward supply chain plan : plan including production and delivery schedules for
providing product to customer
Reverse supply chain plan: plan including predicting core collection interval and
collection schedules for collecting cores for remanufacturing
6. Remanufacturing process (for renew product)
A basic sequence is given in A5 IDEF0 diagram, but depending on the product remanufactured,
the order of the steps may change.
Renew product
A renew product means it contains cores collected from a product’s previous lifecycle, and is
at the start of another new lifecycle (lifecycle 2, 3… or lifecycle n).
Objective criteria, instruction/SOP, Process control, Product/Part specifications: see “Design
documents for remanufacturing and Production documents”
Process
73
Inspection: check the record of critical parameters that determine product’s/part’s lifecycle,
diagnose the fault of the product, report the condition of incoming cores, and judge
appropriate methods for remanufacturing.
Disassembly: disassembly the product down to single part level
Sorting: sort the product into different treatment and quality categories
Cleaning：de-greasing, de-oiling, de-rusting and freeing the parts from old paint etc.
Parts reprocessing: reconditioning for parts enables parts to meet the original specifications.
Testing: Functional inspection or test run of each remanufactured product, and testing is
controlled by the same standard of new product.
Others
Reusable parts: parts can be used directly again after it has been used.
Reconditionable parts: parts can be returned by reprocessing into like-new or better parts,
with warranty to match.
Recyclable parts: parts which cannot be reused or reconditioning but can be returned to
raw materials by material processing