Browse Topic: Remanufacturing
Repartly, a startup based in Guetersloh, Germany, is using ABB’s collaborative robots to repair and refurbish electronic circuit boards in household appliances. Three GoFa cobots handle the sorting, visual inspection and precise soldering tasks enabling the company to enhance efficiency and maintain high quality standards.
While new sustainability efforts aim to curb the carbon footprint of the commercial vehicle industry, old methods continue to be among the most effective. Sustainability has been among the hottest topics for the commercial vehicle industry over the past decade. OEMs, suppliers and various governmental agencies across the globe are touting new advances in clean powertrain tech that reduces the industry's dependence on fossil fuel while also considering the complete carbon footprint of the vehicle from cradle to grave. Though these initiatives have their merits, there are old-school methods of reducing the environmental impact of keeping the world moving. Remanufacturing is decidedly not the sexiest of methods for promoting the concept of sustainability. But recycling existing materials and components is a proven tactic for reducing waste and energy consumption.
At Cox Automotive’s EV Battery Solutions center in Oklahoma City, the conglomerate most famous for its KBB, Autotrader, and Manheim auction brands, has become a go-to for EV battery research, repair, remanufacturing, and recycling.
In the aerospace industry, components are subjected to harsh operating environments. Extremes of temperature, corrosive particulate matter in the air, friction and a variety of operating factors combine to increase the risk of wear and tear, corrosion, and damage.
Implementing and optimizing the sustainability of vehicles that contain embedded electrochemical energy storage have recently been afforded more attention in research due to legislative requirements and cited benefits from circular economy activities. The State-of-Health (SoH) for a traction battery system that prematurely failed can be restored through circular economy activities such as remanufacturing. To enable these circular economy activities, the ability to introduce a new or graded cell or module into a series string to replace the weakest cell or module in a battery module or pack is vital. However, very little is understood about the optimal strategy that will lead to maximizing the lifetime of the most aged cell or module in the new string and predict the expected lifetime of the repaired or remanufactured battery system. The aim of this research is to assess whether aged lithium-ion cells in series, with some of the aged cells replaced with new cells, have an optimized pre-conditioning strategy to ensure the weakest cell’s life is prolonged. Three modules with six 18650 cells in series have been evaluated to determine the optimal replacement strategy for an energy storage unit albeit cell or module in series for in-use life extension activities. Results highlight that it is possible to significantly reduce the degradation of the weakest cell in a repaired string of series cells. Reduction of circa 4% in aging of the weakest cells is reached with bottom pre-conditioning, while an increase in degradation of the new cell is only 2.5% relative to the worst case scenario. Additionally, the authors show that the energy capacity of the string pre-conditioned at the top reduces the most during cycling of the three strings. Based on these experimental results, an optimal pre-conditioning strategy for circular economy activities for electric vehicle traction battery systems is proposed.
This SAE Recommended Practice is prepared as a guideline to improve and maintain the quality of remanufactured automotive products. Installation of remanufactured or rebuilt products is often an economical way to repair a vehicle even though they may not fully be equivalent to original equipment parts. Before processing any part, a remanufacturer should determine if the original design and present condition of the core are suitable for remanufacturing, so as to provide durable operation of the part as well as acceptable performance when installed in a vehicle. The remanufacturer should also carefully consider the safety aspects of the product and any recommendations of the original manufacturer related to remanufacturing or rebuilding their product.
The Indian Economy is becoming significant in the late years. There will be more middle class individuals in the coming years having higher purchasing power, bringing about sharp increment in the ownership of vehicles. The quantity of End-of-Life Vehicles (ELVs) in 2015 is evaluated at 8.7 million and by 2025, this figure is assessed to ascend to 21.8 million. Car breaking yards' ELV recycling practices result in inadequate resource recovery and various forms of pollution. 75-80% of the ELV constitutes of metal and recycled due to its economic benefits. The rest of the 25-30% comprises of plastics, rubber, glass and operating fluids which are mostly disposed off in land or water. Existing international literature has analyzed ELV recycling and remanufacturing practices in India as separate topics. By adopting Circular Economy practices such as 3R (spare parts reuse, component remanufacturing and materials recycling), the institutional framework proposed in this paper considers both ELV recycling and Automotive Component Remanufacturing. Previous methods found in literature, best industrial practices and well-documented case studies are taken into consideration. The framework comprises of three elements such as an authorized dismantling plant, recycling information centre and ELV recycling fund management board; illustrates the integration of various stakeholders such as the Government, Industries, Industry Association, Universities and Research Institutes and their roles in establishing a sustainable ELV recycling infrastructure. The framework could assist policy makers in developing ELV directive and aftermarket service policy; OEMs and other enterprises in establishing synergetic networks as well as Academicians in key research areas to be focused upon.
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.
Life-cycle assessments (LCAs) conducted, to date, of the end-of-life phase of vehicles rely significantly on assumed values and extrapolations within models. The end phase of vehicles, however, has become all the more important as a consequence of increasing regulatory requirements on materials recovery, tightening disposal restrictions, and the rapid introduction of new materials and electronics, all potentially impacting a vehicle's efficacy for achieving greater levels of sustainability. This article presents and discusses selected research results of a comprehensive gate-to-gate life-cycle-inventory (LCI) of end-of-life vehicle (ELV) dismantling and shredding processes, constructed through a comprehensive and detailed case study, and argues that managing and implementing creative dismantling practices can improve significantly the recovery of both reusable and recyclable materials from end-of-life vehicles. Although the amount of parts and materials recovered and directed for reuse, remanufacturing or recycling may be as much as 11.6% by weight of the ELVs entering a dismantling process [1], greater rates of reuse and/or recycling may be achieved by the strategic management of the ELVs entering the dismantling process according to age. Late model, high-salvage ELVs (HSELVS) of an optimum age range (e.g., 5-9 years) could be targeted for maximum recovery of parts for reuse and remanufacture. Older low-salvage ELVs (LSELVs) would be targeted principally for materials recovery and recycling. This paper discusses the challenges anticipated with the development of an ELV management system promoting maximum parts reuse/remanufacturing and materials recycling.
This paper will recommend that the Big-3 carve-out a new business unit that focuses upon the delivery of light-vehicles to fleet operators which are classified as “remanufactured”. The remanufacturing process, as applied to this paper, assures that a not-new product has “like-new” condition characteristics of reliability levels, energy efficiencies, operational capabilities, maintainability, safety and others. This new remanufacturing business model is primarily foreseen to: Materially increase the profit margin of the light vehicle fleet market segment Decrease the market share of imported designed-for-manufacturing components employed in the vehicle production process Reduce the manufacturing impact of light-vehicles upon industrial energy consumption and waste generation Mitigate the loss of control of the design of a vehicle to the Federal Government This article will provide an overview of the following nine elements of this new business model: 1 Who is the customer? 2 What is the value proposition for the customer? 3 What are the channels employed to deliver the value proposition to the customer? 4 How are customer relationships established and maintained with the customer? 5 What are the revenue streams? 6 What are the key processes that deliver a value proposition? 7 What key resources are required to be employed in the processes? 8 What are the key sources-of-resources employed in the process? 9 What is the cost structure? It is the author's belief that the time has come for the Big-3 to think out-of-the-box regarding how they do business. The transition will not be easy, but the anticipated rewards of delivering remanufactured products will be one piece of the puzzle that will be employed to reinvigorate the domestic auto industry.
Over 250 million vehicles are operating on United States roads and highways and over 12 million of them reach the end of their useful lives annually. These end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) contain over 24 million tons (21.8 million metric tonnes) of materials including ferrous and non-ferrous metals, polymers, glass, and automotive fluids. They also contain many parts and components that are still useable and some that could be economically rebuilt or remanufactured. Dismantlers acquire the ELVs and recover from them parts for resale “as-is” or after remanufacturing. The dismantler then sells what remains of the vehicle, the “hulk”, to a shredder who shreds it to recover and sell the metals. Presently, the remaining non-metallic materials, commonly known as shredder residue, are mostly landfilled. The vehicle manufacturers, now more than ever, are working hard to build more energy efficient and safer, more affordable vehicles. In the process, new valuable materials and parts are constantly introduced in new models. These materials present the recyclers with new business opportunities and with new challenges when the vehicles enter the recycling stream. New tools and technologies are needed to realize these opportunities and to maximize the recycling of the ELVs. This paper discusses opportunities and challenges facing the automobile recycling industries in the future.
These remanufacturing procedures are recommended guidelines for use by remanufacturers of starter armatures to promote consistent reliability, durability, and safety of remanufactured starters. Installation of remanufactured or rebuilt products is often an economical way to repair a vehicle even though the products may not be identical to original equipment parts. Before processing any part, a remanufacturer should determine if the original design and present condition of the core is suitable for remanufacturing so as to provide durable operation of the part as well as acceptable performance when installed on the vehicle. The remanufacturer should also consider the safety aspects of the product and any recommendations of the original manufacturers related to remanufacturing or rebuilding their product. While these procedures are meant to be universal in application, various product types have unique features of dimension and design which may require special remanufacturing processes and tests that are either not covered by or are exceptions to these procedures.
These remanufacturing procedures are recommended guidelines for use by remanufacturers of starter solenoids to promote consistent reliability, durability, and safety of remanufactured starters. Installation of remanufactured or rebuilt products is often an economical way to repair a vehicle even though the products may not be identical to original equipment parts. Before processing any part, a remanufacturer should determine if the original design and present condition of the core is suitable for remanufacturing so as to provide durable operation of the part as well as acceptable performance when installed on the vehicle. The remanufacturer should also consider the safety aspects of the product and any recommendations of the original manufacturers related to remanufacturing or rebuilding their product. While these procedures are meant to be universal in application, various product types have unique features of dimension and design which may require special remanufacturing processes and tests that are either not covered by or are exceptions to these procedures.
These remanufacturing procedures are recommended guidelines for use by remanufacturers of starter drives to promote consistent reliability, durability, and safety of remanufactured starters. Installation of remanufactured or rebuilt products is often an economical way to repair a vehicle even though the products may not be identical to original equipment parts. Before processing any part, a remanufacturer should determine if the original design and present condition of the core is suitable for remanufacturing so as to provide durable operation of the part as well as acceptable performance when installed on the vehicle. The remanufacturer should also consider the safety aspects of the product and any recommendations of the original manufacturers related to remanufacturing or rebuilding their product. While these procedures are meant to be universal in application, various product types have unique features of dimension and design which may require special remanufacturing processes and tests that are either not covered by or are exceptions to these procedures.
These remanufacturing procedures are recommended minimum guidelines (with theunderstanding that being more critical is acceptable) for use by remanufacturers/rebuilders of alternators to promote consistent reliability, durability, and safety of remanufactured alternators. Installation of remanufactured or rebuilt products is often an economical way to repair an application even though the products may not be identical to original equipment parts. Before processing any part, a remanufacturer/rebuilder should determine if the original design and present condition of the core are suitable for remanufacturing/rebuilding so as to provide durable operation of the part as well as acceptable performance when installed on the application. The remanufacturer/rebuilder should also consider the safety aspects of the product and any recommendations of the original manufacturers related to remanufacturing or rebuilding this product.
This SAE Recommended Practice is prepared as a guideline to improve and maintain the quality of remanufactured automotive products. Installation of remanufactured or rebuilt products is often an economical way to repair a vehicle even though they may not fully be equivalent to original equipment parts. Before processing any part, a remanufacturer should determine if the original design and present condition of the core are suitable for remanufacturing, so as to provide durable operation of the part as well as acceptable performance when installed in a vehicle. The remanufacturer should also carefully consider the safety aspects of the product and any recommendations of the original manufacturer related to remanufacturing or rebuilding their product.
Many commercially available advanced-technology CMOS and bipolar integrated circuits are susceptible to single-event latchup (SEL) effects caused by heavy ions or protons from cosmic rays or solar flares, making them unsuitable for satellite applications. Remanufacturing the integrated circuits in an inherently SEL-immune process has been an expensive and technically difficult option, as is the alternate option of incorporating latchup protection and recovery circuitry in the spacecraft system's electronics.
Remanufacturing, recognized as America's greatest growth industry, is today a reality stressing quality and production efficiency. A quality remanufactured product couples the science of engineering with the art of rebuilding to produce a product equal in life to that of a new product but at a tremendous savings through the use of reclaimed housings, castings, etc. There are two primary threats to the re-manufacturing industry: 1. Engineering that seeks cost reductions through weight reduction and lesser quality components rather than durability and reusability. 2. The remanufacturer himself in not being able to hold high quality standards with production line economies.
Items per page:
50
1 – 50 of 52