Design for Remanufacturing: The Requirement for Today and Tomorrow

The overall cost of ownership of a product is dependent on the life of the product and the cost. To keep the cost of ownership down, it is important to understand how the life of the product can be increased while lowering the cost at the same time. We are also challenged to reduce the carbon footprint and improve energy requirements to become more sustainable and green. How can both of these necessities be achieved? “Remanufacturing” is a simple answer to this complex question. Remanufacturing can improve the useable life of a part or product by multiple times. It is cost effective compared to new part production and is reasonably inexpensive to end customer. The energy required for remanufacturing is less compared to its original manufacturing. Remanufacturing reuses/salvages most of the original content. Design for Remanufacturing is a fundamental change in design engineering process to meet remanufacturing requirements. This paper is an effort to discuss Remanufacturing and Design for Remanufacturing for better cost of ownership and sustainable engineering.