Remanufacturing is an environmentally sound material recovery option which is essential to compete for sustainable manufacturing. The aim with remanufacturing at a majority of companies is to prolong physical product performance by delivering the same or betterthan-original product quality. In general, remanufacturing is an industrial process that brings used products back to useful life by requiring less effort than is demanded by the initial production process. Consequently, from a product life-cycle perspective, remanufacturing generates great product value. Remanufacturers lag behind manufacturers since they often face complex and unpredictable material and information flows. Based on a review of remanufacturing research, remanufacturing challenges in material and information flows can be classified into three groups: insufficient product quality, long and unstable process lead times, and an unpredictable level of inventory. While some remanufacturing researchers state that manufacturing and remanufacturing are significantly different, they have more in common than many other processes operations. Therefore, to sustain competitive remanufacturing, companies investigate an opportunity for improvement through the employment of lean production that generates significant benefits for manufacturers. In order to investigate the potential to address remanufacturing challenges by lean production, a Minimum time for material and information flow analysis (MiniMifa) method was developed. This method originates from the value stream mapping (VSM) method, broadly practiced to bring lean to manufacturing companies. The focus of MiniMifa was to collect empirical data on the identified groups of remanufacturing challenges from the remanufacturing perspective, and to provide a basis for the development of improvements originating from lean principles. Lean production was selected for this research due to its system perspective on material and information flows. Among the defined lean principles in remanufacturing, a pull principle was investigated at the case companies. The suggested principle demonstrated a reduction in lead time, followed by improvements in inventory level and product quality. However, in order to become lean, remanufacturers have to overcome three levels of lean remanufacturing challenges: external and internal challenges as well as lean wastes. Finally, this research reduces the gap between academia and industry by contributing with a possible solution to the identified remanufacturing challenges in material and information flows.
Interest in the phenomenon known as "lean" has grown significantly in recent years. This is the first volume to provide an academically rigorous overview of the field of lean management, introducing the reader to the application of lean in diverse application areas, from the production floor to sales and marketing, from the automobile industry to academic institutions. The volume collects contributions from well-known lean experts and up-and-coming scholars from around the world. The chapters provide a detailed description of lean management across the manufacturing enterprise (supply chain, accounting, production, sales, IT etc.), and offer important perspectives for applying lean across different industries (construction, healthcare, logistics). The contributors address challenges and opportunities for future development in each of the lean application areas, concluding most chapters with a short case study to illustrate current best practice. The book is divided into three parts: The Lean Enterprise Lean across Industries A Lean World. This handbook is an excellent resource for business and management students as well as any academics, scholars, practitioners, and consultants interested in the "lean world."
Interest in the phenomenon known as "lean" has grown significantly in recent years. This is the first volume to provide an academically rigorous overview of the field of lean management, introducing the reader to the application of lean in diverse application areas, from the production floor to sales and marketing, from the automobile industry to academic institutions. The volume collects contributions from well-known lean experts and up-and-coming scholars from around the world. The chapters provide a detailed description of lean management across the manufacturing enterprise (supply chain, accounting, production, sales, IT etc.), and offer important perspectives for applying lean across different industries (construction, healthcare, logistics). The contributors address challenges and opportunities for future development in each of the lean application areas, concluding most chapters with a short case study to illustrate current best practice. The book is divided into three parts: The Lean Enterprise Lean across Industries A Lean World. This handbook is an excellent resource for business and management students as well as any academics, scholars, practitioners, and consultants interested in the "lean world."
The book is about applying Lean manufacturing principles to industrial maintenance in order to improve the efficiency and be able to do more with the same (or less) resources. By industrial maintenance we mean the maintenance that takes place in factories and industrial facilities. The book is the result of multiple improvement projects carried out by the authors in various industrial settings and sectors in the past 10 years.The approach works and can be applied in any industry. It yields results without investment. The book is a step-by-step guide that takes the reader through the maintenance process, from equipment failure to finished repair. In each step of the process, the typical inefficiencies are explained and tools are given to improve the process. The book is meant to be used as a guide in an improvement journey. The improvement approach presented in the book is very close to the shop floor and instructs the reader to engage with all team members in the maintenance department in every step of the process, in order to make the improvements sustainable. If one looks at the main market indexes, between one third and one half of companies on those indexes belong to the industrial sector: automotive, power generation, basic materials, chemicals, consumer goods, et cetera. Those companies spend on average 2 – 5% of plant replacement value per year on maintenance. About one third of this cost is maintenance labor. The maintenance work that gets done every day in factories around the world is typically inefficient, from a Lean perspective: time is wasted, different tasks are not properly coordinated, job durations are overestimated and job plans, when they exist, are thus "inflated" to cover up the inefficiency. All this happens because maintenance tends to be the "forgotten" area of efficiency in industrial companies, as much of the improvements are carried out on the (literally) productive areas of the factories. When companies set out to "improve" maintenance, they typically do it through budget cuts that can risk the reliability of the equipment. The authors believe there is a better way to do more with the same resources through a careful review of the current way of working and the introduction of Lean. With this book , the authors try to bring to maintenance managers and practitioners the tools they need to quickly improve efficiency (in a matter of weeks) without any investment.
The present economic and social environment has given rise to new situations within which companies must operate. As a first example, the globalization of the economy and the need for performance has led companies to outsource and then to operate inside networks of enterprises such as supply chains or virtual enterprises. A second instance is related to environmental issues. The statement about the impact of ind- trial activities on the environment has led companies to revise processes, to save - ergy, to optimize transportation.... A last example relates to knowledge. Knowledge is considered today to be one of the main assets of a company. How to capitalize, to manage, to reuse it for the benefit of the company is an important current issue. The three examples above have no direct links. However, each of them constitutes a challenge that companies have to face today. This book brings together the opinions of several leading researchers from all around the world. Together they try to develop new approaches and find answers to those challenges. Through the individual ch- ters of this book, the authors present their understanding of the different challenges, the concepts on which they are working, the approaches they are developing and the tools they propose. The book is composed of six parts; each one focuses on a specific theme and is subdivided into subtopics.
This book gathers selected peer-reviewed papers presented at the 6th European Lean Educator Conference (ELEC), held in Milan, Italy, on November 11-13, 2019. The conference topics include the following: lean trainings in university and industry collaborations; lean product and process development; lean and people empowerment; emerging contexts for lean applications; measuring lean performance; lean, green and circular; continuous improvement initiatives; lean thinking in practice; organizational culture in lean journeys; and innovative training approaches to teaching lean management. The contributions explore the latest academic and industrial findings on and advances in lean education, and identify innovative methods that allow lean thinking benefits to be achieved in practice. As such, the book presents the outcomes of a fruitful exchange between academia and industry designed to help train the next generation of lean educators.
The two volumes IFIP AICT 397 and 398 constitute the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the International IFIP WG 5.7 Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems, APMS 2012, held in Rhodes, Greece, in September 2012. The 182 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the two volumes. They are organized in 6 parts: sustainability; design, manufacturing and production management; human factors, learning and innovation; ICT and emerging technologies in production management; product and asset lifecycle management; and services, supply chains and operations.
Knowledge-intensive product realization implies embedded intelligence; meaning that if both theoretical and practical knowledge and understanding of a subject is integrated into the design and production processes of products, this will significantly increase added value. This book presents papers accepted for the 9th Swedish Production Symposium (SPS2020), hosted by the School of Engineering, Jönköping University, Sweden, and held online on 7 & 8 October 2020 because of restrictions due to the Corona virus pandemic. The subtitle of the conference was Knowledge Intensive Product Realization in Co-Operation for Future Sustainable Competitiveness. The book contains the 57 papers accepted for presentation at the conference, and these are divided into nine sections which reflect the topics covered: resource efficient production; flexible production; virtual production development; humans in production systems; circular production systems and maintenance; integrated product and production development; advanced and optimized components, materials and manufacturing; digitalization for smart products and services; and responsive and efficient operations and supply chains. In addition, the book presents five special sessions from the symposium: development of changeable and reconfigurable production systems; smart production system design and development; supply chain relocation; management of manufacturing digitalization; and additive manufacturing in the production system. The book will be of interest to all those working in the field of knowledge-intensive product realization.
This book highlights the recent research works on mechanical, manufacturing and plant engineering presented during the 7th International Conference on Mechanical, Manufacturing and Plant Engineering (ICMMPE 2021) held on 29th November 2021. It highlights the latest advances in the emerging areas, brings together researchers and professionals in the field and provides a valuable platform for exchanging ideas and fostering collaboration. Addressing real-world problems concerning joining technologies that are at the heart of various manufacturing sectors, the respective papers present the outcomes of the latest experimental and numerical work on problems in soldering, arc welding and solid-state joining technologies.
Remanufacturing is an industrial process in which a core – a used, discarded, or broken product – is transformed into a product with a like-new specification and condition. However, to this date, remanufacturing activities on the market are few compared to manufacturing. There are several types of remanufacturers; the least common type is the original equipment remanufacturer, an original equipment manufacturer that not only manufactures new products but also remanufactures cores of its own products. Remanufacturing is potentially becoming a more widely used industrial process for original equipment manufacturers, and increased remanufacturing activities can positively contribute to the environment. The contribution comes from a reduction of raw material and energy consumption compared to manufacturing. Therefore, remanufacturing has the potential to decouple environmental impact from economic growth, thus contributing to more sustainable societies. However, assessing the benefits of remanufacturing does not directly correlate to growth within the remanufacturing industry. To encapsulate the environmental, social, and economic benefits of remanufacturing, manufacturers need to be aware of how remanufacturing can be initiated and implemented in practice. Therefore, the objective of this dissertation is to develop support measures for original equipment manufacturers to initiate profitable remanufacturing. This research takes a stand in case study and transdisciplinary research where the initiation of profitable remanufacturing is studied at two original equipment manufacturers. The research study developed knowledge of how remanufacturing could be incorporated into existing operations at original equipment manufacturers. In parallel, financial assessments based on cost-benefit analysis were built to measure how well the case companies could perform remanufacturing. For the case study research, seven remanufacturing scenarios were developed, ranging from centralised remanufacturing performed by the original equipment manufacturer to decentralised performed at multiple locations using a retail network. Which scenario is preferable depends on, for example, risk-consciousness, cooperation between actors, and volume targets. However, given ideal circumstances, remanufacturing in-house in a centralised scenario was shown to be the most beneficial for the investigated original equipment manufacturer since the fewer middle hands and economies of scale also potentially enable lower costs. For the transdisciplinary research, the remanufacturing initiation was business model-centric, meaning that the remanufacturing system was a consequence of a decision for a specific business model. Here, a scenario-based analysis was developed to understand under which circumstances the business model with remanufacturing was more lucrative for the provider – the original equipment manufacturer – and less costly for the users – the customers. For this, a systematic assessment approach was developed consisting of three steps: (1) provide a cost overview for each business model, (2) create scenarios by modifying the cost drivers, and (3) combine scenarios to reach synergetic effects. Based on the case study, two sets of four prerequisites for initiating remanufacturing were derived. These are divided into essential and supporting prerequisites and illustrated through a framework called the Remanufacturing Rocket. The essential prerequisites highlight fundamental requirements to perform remanufacturing. Should one of these four factors be missing, remanufacturing cannot be successfully initiated. The supporting prerequisites are valuable to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the process, such as through streamlined operations, organisational change, or information exchange. Hence, to reach the fullest potential of remanufacturing, both the essential and the supporting prerequisites are needed. Furthermore, the area of financial assessments was explored in a systematic literature review to identify insights for developing such assessments tailored for individual original equipment manufacturers in initiating remanufacturing. For this, six perspectives for framing financial assessments are proposed. These cover the system boundaries for the assessments as well as the individual needs and visions of original equipment manufacturers. Additionally, a framework was developed to select financial assessment models for remanufacturing initiations based on ease of use and capability to handle complex datasets. Conclusively, it is proposed to apply the prerequisites for initiating remanufacturing together with a financial assessment in an iterative manner to investigate the profitability for original equipment manufacturers to initiate remanufacturing. The essential prerequisites influence the first iteration of the financial assessment, which then contributes to refinements of how the essential prerequisites should be aligned in an economically preferable way. Once satisfactory, another iterative process could be initiated between the supporting prerequisites and the financial assessment. By using the proposed approach, the prospects of profitable remanufacturing could be thoroughly investigated before attempting to initiate a process in practice, thus reducing the number of resources spent in vain. Additionally, the iterative process was integrated into a 5-step Approach For Initiating Remanufacturing (5AFIR) to guide original equipment manufacturers towards initiating profitable remanufacturing. Refabrikation (oder Wiederaufbereitung, engl. Remanufacturing) ist ein industrieller Prozess, bei dem ein Altteil – ein gebrauchtes, ausrangiertes, verschlissenes oder defektes Produkt – gemäß den Herstellerspezifikationen in einen neuwertigen Zustand gebracht wird. Heutzutage macht Refabrikation allerdings nur einen kleinen Teil der Fertigungsindustrie aus. Verschiedene Arten von Unternehmen betreiben Refabrikation, wobei Originalgerätehersteller, sogenannte OEMs (engl. für Original Equipment Manufacturer), am seltensten sind. Solche OEMs betreiben neben Produktion auch eine Wiederaufbereitung ihrer eigenen Produkte. Refabrikation kann sowohl ökologische als auch ökonomische Vorteile bringen und hat somit grundsätzlich hohes Marktpotential. Der geringere Rohstoff- und Energieverbrauch von Refabrikation im Vergleich zu Neuproduktion ist ein Beispiel für ökologischen Vorteil. Refabrikation ermöglicht außerdem, negative Umweltauswirkungen durch Produktion und Wirtschaftswachstum voneinander unabhängig zu machen und trägt somit zu nachhaltigem Wachstum bei. Allerdings hängt der Nutzen von Refabrikation nicht direkt mit dem Wachstum innerhalb der Refabrikationsbranche zusammen. Um die ökologischen, sozialen und ökonomischen Vorteile nutzen zu können, müssen Hersteller Kompetenz zur praktischen Umsetzung von Refabrikation aufbauen. Ziel dieser Dissertation ist daher die Entwicklung von Unterstützungsmaßnahmen und -konzepten für OEMs, die zu profitabler Refabrikation führen. Diese Arbeit basiert auf einer Fallstudie und auf transdisziplinärer Forschung, bei der die Einführung von profitabler Refabrikation bei zwei OEMs untersucht wurde. Die Fallstudie lieferte Erkenntnisse darüber, wie Refabrikation in bestehende Abläufe bei OEMs integriert werden kann. Außerdem wurden finanzielle Bewertungskriterien auf der Grundlage einer Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse erstellt, um messen zu können, wie erfolgreich die untersuchten Unternehmen Refabrikation implementieren könnten. Für die Fallstudie wurden sieben Refabrikationsszenarien entwickelt, die von zentraler Refabrikation durch das OEM bis zu dezentraler Refabrikation an mehreren Standorten durch ein Netzwerk von Niederlassungen reichen. Welches der Szenarien vorzuziehen ist, hängt beispielsweise vom Risikobewusstsein, der Zusammenarbeit der Akteure und den angestrebten Stückzahlen ab. Unter idealen Umständen erwies sich die unternehmensinterne Refabrikation mit zentralisierter Struktur als das vorteilhafteste Szenario. Für die untersuchten OEMs führten weniger Zwischenhändler und Größenvorteile zu geringeren Kosten. In der transdisziplinären Forschung dieser Dissertation wurde davon ausgegangen, dass das Refabrikationssystem aus der Entscheidung für ein bestimmtes Geschäftsmodell folgt. Basierend auf verschiedenen Szenarien wurde analysiert, unter welchen Umständen das Geschäftsmodell inklusive Refabrikation für den Anbieter (OEM) lukrativer und für die Anwender (Kunden) kostengünstiger war. Hierzu wurde ein systematisches Bewertungsschema entwickelt, das aus drei Schritten besteht: (1) Bereitstellung einer Kostenübersicht für jedes Geschäftsmodell, (2) Erstellung von Szenarien durch Modifikation der Kostentreiber und (3) Kombination von Szenarien, um Synergieeffekte zu erzielen. Anforderungen für die Einführung von Refabrikation wurden auf Basis der Fallstudie abgeleitet. Diese sind in vier essentielle und vier unterstützende Anforderungen eingeteilt und werden durch ein Modell namens Refabrikationsrakete veranschaulicht. Die essentiellen Anforderungen sind grundlegend für die Durchführung von Refabrikation. Ist eine dieser vier Anforderungen nicht erfüllt, kann Refabrikation nicht erfolgreich umgesetzt werden. Die unterstützenden Anforderungen steigern die Effektivität und Effizienz des Einführungsprozesses, beispielsweise durch optimierte Abläufe, organisatorische Änderungen oder Informationsaustausch. Um das volle Potenzial von Refabrikation auszuschöpfen, müssen sowohl die essentiellen als auch die unterstützenden Anforderungen erfüllt werden. Wirtschaftliche Bewertungskriterien wurden im Rahmen einer systematischen Literaturrecherche betrachtet. Ziel der Recherche war es, Erkenntnisse für die Entwicklung solcher Bewertungskriterien zu erlangen. Die Kriterien sollen dabei auf einzelne OEMs und die Einführung von Refabrikation zugeschnitten sein. In dieser Arbeit werden sechs Ansätze für die Entwicklung wirtschaftlicher Bewertungskriterien vorgeschlagen. Diese Ansätze behandeln sowohl Systemgrenzen für die Bewertungskriterien als auch individuelle Bedürfnisse und Ziele der OEM. Darüber hinaus wurde ein Rahmenwerk entwickelt, um wirtschaftliche Bewertungskriterien auf Basis ihrer Benutzerfreundlichkeit und ihrer Fähigkeit zur Bewältigung komplexer Datenmengen auszuwählen. Abschließend wird vorgeschlagen, die Anforderungen für die Einführung von Refabrikation zusammen mit einer wirtschaftlichen Bewertung iterativ zu prüfen, um die Rentabilität von Refabrikation für OEMs zu analysieren. Die essentiellen Anforderungen beeinflussen die erste Iterationsschleife der wirtschaftlichen Bewertung. In dieser ersten Schleife wird verfeinert, wie die Grundanforderungen wirtschaftlich sinnvoll kombiniert werden können. Es folgt eine zweite Iterationsschleife zwischen den unterstützenden Anforderungen und der finanziellen Bewertung. Mit diesem Vorgehen kann das Potential einer rentablen Refabrikation gründlich untersucht werden bevor mit der Realisierung begonnen wird. Dadurch können eventuell erfolglose Einführungsversuche vermieden und vergeblich aufgewendete Ressourcen reduziert werden. Der iterative Prozess wurde in einen 5-stufigen Modell zur Einführung von Refabrikation (5AFIR) zusammengefasst. Återtillverkning är en industriell process där en stomme – en använd, uttjänt eller trasig produkt – omformas till en produkt vars specifikation och kvalitet motsvarar nyskick. Idag utgör återtillverkning endast en liten del av den totala tillverkningsindustrin. Det finns flera typer av återtillverkare; den ovanligaste är originaltillverkande återtillverkare, det vill säga, ett tillverkande företag som även återtillverkar sina egna produkter. Genom den låga grad av återtillverkning bland originaltillverkare idag finns det utrymme för att verka för en ökning. En sådan ökning kan bidra till miljömässiga fördelar genom att mängden råmaterial och energi reduceras jämfört med nytillverkning. Det finns därför en möjlighet för återtillverkning att bidra till en frikoppling av miljömässig påverkan från ekonomisk tillväxt, vilket i sin tur bidrar till ett mer hållbart samhälle. Fast att endast värdera nyttan av återtillverkning leder inte direkt till en tillväxt inom återtillverkningsindustrin. För att omfamna de miljömässiga, sociala och ekonomiska nyttor som återtillverkning kan bidra med måste originaltillverkare vara medvetna om hur återtillverkning kan initieras och implementeras i praktiken på ett ekonomiskt lönsamt sätt. Denna doktorsavhandlings syfte är därför att utveckla stöd för originaltillverkare att initiera lönsam återtillverkning. Forskningen utgår från en fallstudie och transdisciplinär forskningsmetodik där initieringen av lönsam återtillverkning studeras vid två originaltillverkare. Den utförda forskningen utvecklade kunskap om hur återtillverkning kan integrerats i en originaltillverkares befintliga verksamhet. Parallellt med detta utvecklades ekonomiska utvärderingsmetoder för att tillhandahålla ett mått på hur väl fallföretagen skulle kunna utföra återtillverkning. För fallstudien utvecklades det sju återtillverkningsscenarion som sträcker sig från centraliserad återtillverkning, som utförs av originaltillverkaren, till decentraliserad, som utförs vid flertalet platser inom ett återförsäljarnätverk. Vilket scenario som var mest fördelaktigt berodde exempelvis på riskmedvetenhet, samarbete mellan aktörer, och tillverkningsvolym. Men givet ideala förhållanden visades det att centraliserad återtillverkning vore potentiellt mest fördelaktigt för fallföretaget, eftersom färre mellanhänder och stordriftsfördelar möjliggör lägre kostnader. För det andra fallföretagets initieringen av återtillverkning vid tillämpning av den transdisciplinära forskningsmetodiken var det ett affärsmodellsfokus, vilket innebar att återtillverkningssystemet var en konsekvens av ett beslut för en viss affärsmodell. I denna del av forskningen utvecklades en scenariobaserad analysmetod för att förstå under vilka förhållanden som affärsmodellen tillsammans med återtillverkning vore mer lukrativt för företaget – originaltillverkaren – och mindre kostsamt för användaren – kunden. För detta utvecklades en systematisk ansats för ekonomiska utvärderingar bestående av tre steg: (1) tillhandahåll en kostnadsöverblick för varje affärsmodell, (2) skapa scenarion genom att modifiera kostnadsdrivarna, och (3) kombinera scenarion för att uppnå synergieffekter. Med utgångspunkt i fallstudien utvecklades även faktorer för att forma krav för hur originaltillverkare kan initiera återtillverkning. Dessa faktorer delas upp i grundläggande och stödjande kravställningar, och de bygger tillsammans upp ett ramverk benämnt Återtillverkningsraketen. De grundläggande kravställningarna lyfter fram elementära krav vid utförandet av återtillverkning och om en av de fyra skulle saknas kan återtillverkning inte utföras på ett framgångsrikt sätt. De stödjande kravställningarna är av värde för att förbättra återtillverkningseffektiviteten genom exempelvis bekymmersfritt utförande av processer, organisationsförändringar, eller informationsutbyten. Därigenom, för att nå den fulla potentialen av återtillverkning, behövs både de grundläggande och de stödjande kravställningarna. Dessutom utforskades området för ekonomiska utvärderingsmetoder i en systematisk litteraturgenomgång för att identifiera insikter för att utveckla sådana metoder skräddarsydda för individuella originaltillverkare som initierar återtillverkning. För ändamålet föreslås sex perspektiv för att forma ekonomiska utvärderingsmetoder. Dessa täcker såväl systemgränserna för utvärderingarna som individuella behov och visioner hos originaltillverkare. För att vidare stödja företagen utvecklades ett ramverk för att välja ekonomiska utvärderingsmetoder för initieringar av återtillverkning baserat på användarvänlighet och förmåga att hantera komplexa datamängder. Slutligen föreslås det att tillämpa de framtagna kravställningarna tillsammans med ekonomisk utvärdering genom att iterativt undersöka möjligheterna för hur återtillverkning kan initieras för originaltillverkare. De grundläggande kravställningarna influerar upplägget för den första iterationen av den ekonomiska utvärderingen, vilken i sin tur nyttjas för att förfina hur de grundläggande kravställningarna kan läggas samman på ett ekonomiskt fördelaktigt sätt. När en godtagbar nivå uppnåtts kan ytterligare en iterativ process utföras mellan de stödjande kravställningarna och den ekonomiska värderingen. Genom att tillämpa det föreslagna tillvägagångssättet kan möjligheterna för återtillverkning undersökas på en detaljerad nivå innan initieringsförsök i praktiken, och såldes kan mängden slösade resurser minskas. Utöver detta integrerades det iterativa tillvägagångssättet med en 5-stegsansats för initiering av återtillverkning (5AFIR).
