Application of active disassembly to extend profitable ...

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Application of active disassembly to extend profitable remanufacturing in small electrical and electronic products a

W.L. Ijomah & J.D. Chiodo

b

a

DMEM, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

b

Active Disassembly Research Ltd, London, UK

Available online: 24 Nov 2010

To cite this article: W.L. Ijomah & J.D. Chiodo (2010): Application of active disassembly to extend profitable remanufacturing in small electrical and electronic products, International Journal of Sustainable Engineering, 3:4, 246-257 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19397038.2010.511298

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International Journal of Sustainable Engineering Vol. 3, No. 4, December 2010, 246–257

Application of active disassembly to extend profitable remanufacturing in small electrical and electronic products W.L. Ijomaha* and J.D. Chiodob a

DMEM, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK; bActive Disassembly Research Ltd, London, UK

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(Received 18 April 2010; final version received 14 July 2010) Alternative production approaches are required because of conventional manufacturing’s adverse environmental impacts. Remanufacturing returns used products to at least original performance specification from customers’ perspectives and gives the resultant products warranties at least equal to that of new equivalents. Remanufacturing is relatively novel in research terms compared to conventional manufacture and recycling but often is more profitable than both. It would help manufacturers address competitive, environmental and legislative pressures by enabling them to meet pressing waste legislation while producing high-quality, lower cost products with less environmentally damaging end-of-life (EoL) and manufacturing modes. Remanufacturing is highly profitable in large, complex mechanical and electromechanical products but with conventional manufacturing and design modes not so in smaller products; particularly fast moving ones. However, effective waste management is urgently required for such products because waste electrical and electronic equipment constitutes the fastest growing EU waste stream and a large percentage of products being produced by major developing economies such as China are of this type. Active disassembly (AD) enables product non-destructive, self-disassembly at EoL and was invented to facilitate a step-change improvement in recycling. This research investigated the use of AD to extend profitable remanufacturing into small EoL electrical and electronic products. Keywords: disassembly; remanufacture; WEEE; design-for-remanufacture; active disassembly

1.

Introduction

Competition and environmental pressures, in particular waste from manufacturing, are major global concerns. Product design must thus support the need for comprehensive improvements in industrial practice and technological solutions to promote more sustainable production and consumption modes (Pugh 1994, Von Weizsacker et al. 1997, Chiodo et al. 1997). Current product’s life-cycle analysis (LCA) demonstrates that the disposal phase contributes substantially to the environmental impacts of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), (EEC Council Directive on hazardous waste 1991, Hawken 1993, EEC Council Amending Directive hazardous waste 1994), particularly in products containing toxic materials (ECTEL 1997a), scarce or valuable materials, or materials with a high energy content. Within WEEE, there is the combination of all these situations, including, for example, batteries, quality plastics, precious metals and toxic solder. The figures of the EU in 1998 for WEEE were in the region of 6.5–7.5 million tonnes per year (Cramer and Stevels 1995, AEATechnology Report 1997). This represents less than 1% of the total EU solid waste stream (ECTEL 1997b), but accounts for at least at base case scenario, 50% of metals in general and almost 100% of heavy metal in leachate. The ECTEL report

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] ISSN 1939-7038 print/ISSN 1939-7046 online q 2010 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/19397038.2010.511298 http://www.informaworld.com

indicates that this is because PCBs contain almost all of the hazardous waste in WEEE. Thus, reusing a PCB means avoiding this fraction and thus, according to all LCA studies, the heavy metal portions representing 2% of landfill and 80– 90% of heavy metal in leachate. Thus, it is critical to find cost-effective methods of addressing WEEE reuse because their quantity is rapidly increasing (Lonnroth 1997). Remanufacturing, a process of returning a used product to at least original performance specification from the customers’ perspective and giving the resultant product a warranty that is at least equal to that of a newly manufactured equivalent (Ijomah 2002, Ijomah et al. 2004), is a central and profitable strategy in waste management, material recovery and environmentally conscious manufacturing. The significance of remanufacturing is that it limits waste generation as well as energy and resource consumption by manufacture. In contrast, conventional manufacturing generates in excess of 60% of annual non-hazardous waste (Nasr and Varel 1996). Furthermore, increasingly severe legislation, particularly landfill and end-of-life (EoL) directives, demands a reduction in the environmental impacts of products and manufacturing processes, (Chiodo et al. 1997, Ijomah et al. 2007). Since the Basel agreement, (The Basel Convention, http://www.basel.int/index.html), prohibits the exporting of waste outside the EU, European producers must manage

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International Journal of Sustainable Engineering their waste internally. This, combined with rising fiscal penalties such as the landfill tax (HMS Treasury 2004), and increasing global competition, makes remanufacturing expertise paramount. A key problem is designers’ lack of expertise in designing remanufacturable products (see for example, Ijomah et al. 2007). Currently, remanufacturing is profitable typically for large complex mechanical and electromechanical products with highly stable product and process technology (Ijomah 2002, Ijomah et al. 2007). The research indicates few examples where products with volatile product and process technologies are routinely remanufactured, the key reason here being that their remanufacture is cost-prohibitive. ‘Active disassembly’ (AD) is an alternative to conventional dismantling techniques that enable the non-destructive, self-disassembly of a wide variety of consumer electronics on the same generic dismantling line, thus reducing disassembly cost (Chiodo and Boks 2002). This paper illustrates the potential of using AD to extend profitable remanufacture to small sized (i.e. hand held), electrical and electronic products. The significance here is that WEEEs is the EU’s fastest growing waste stream (ICER 2005), but small-sized WEEEs are typically not profitable to remanufacture as their volatile technological pace makes their disassembly by conventional means overly expensive. The AD technique has been applied to a variety of electronic products since the 1990s (e.g. Chiodo et al. (1997), Masui et al. (1999), Nishiwaki et al. (2000), Li et al. (2001), Braunschweig (2004), Jones et al. (2004), Klett and Blessing (2004), Duflou et al. (2006)), but to benefit recycling. This is the first instance where AD is being utilised specifically for remanufacturing. 2.

Methodology

The research was undertaken within the electrical and electronic sector of the UK remanufacturing industry. To enhance the research validity, care was taken to ensure adequate representation of the research population. Thus, a wide range of small electrical and electronic products including mobile phones, watches, appliances such as microwave ovens, home entertainment goods such as audio-visual equipment, automotive electronics such as electronic control units (ECUs) and a variety of other small hand-held electronics were investigated. A wide geographical area was also covered (Scotland and England) and all categories of remanufacturers (original equipment remanufacturers (OEM), independents, contract, small medium and large) as defined by Lund (1984) were included. Remanufacturing-related findings were obtained via the literature search, workshops and observational case studies supported by interviews with key company personnel and informant examination of case-study reports. The workshops comprised group work by brainstorming, discussion and practical product disassembly. They involved manufacturing engineers

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and designers from academia and industry, working in groups of four and five persons, in order to fuse academic and industrial knowledge and were held at the University of Strathclyde and at the 2nd BSI sustainable design conference in London, UK. Their objectives were to identify and verify the major remanufacturing problems, the key requirements for profitable remanufacturing as well as the product design and manufacture features that hinder and assist disassembly. A total of six case studies and five workshops (to validate case-study findings) were undertaken. The workshop and case-study results were validated by stakeholder review, peer review via publications as well as application via use in redesigning candidate products with AD. The stakeholder review involved testing for replication logic (Creswell 1994) by discussing the results with new remanufacturing practitioners and academics at trade fairs and conferences as well as telephone discussion with new remanufacturers. 3.

The remanufacturing domain

3.1 Remanufacture vs. alternative reuse processes Remanufacturing, reconditioning and repair can be differentiated in four key ways. Firstly, remanufactured products have warranties equal to that of new alternatives while being repaired or reconditioned ones have inferior guarantees. Typically, with reconditioning the warranty applies to all major wearing parts while for repair it applies only to the repaired component. Secondly, remanufacturing generally involves greater work content than the other two processes leading to products that generally have superior quality and performance. Thirdly, remanufactured products lose their identity while being repaired and reconditioned products retain theirs. Furthermore, remanufacturing requires assessment of all product components with those that cannot be brought back at least to original specification being replaced with new alternatives. Fourthly, remanufacture may involve the upgrade of used products beyond the original specification which does not occur with repair and reconditioning. Reuse is the process of using functional components from retired assemblies (Amezquita et al. 1996). Recycling is the series of activities for collecting, sorting and processing discarded materials for use within new products (Stahel 1994). Remanufacturing is preferable to recycling, because it adds value to waste products by returning them to working order, whereas recycling simply reduces the used product to its raw material value (Ijomah 2002). Evidence of remanufacturing’s environmental and economic benefits is well recorded in the literature (see, for example, Lund 1996, Ijomah 2002, Ijomah et al. 2007). Figure 1 shows the three processes of remanufacturing, reconditioning and repair on an axes based on the typical warranty and performance of their products as well as the work content that they normally require.

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W.L. Ijomah and J.D. Chiodo even greater than the cost of using new alternatives);

Greater product performance

. reassembly of components to get back the whole

system. Here, the components that are assembled will comprise new and remanufactured parts, typically from both the original product and similar products; and . testing to produce the remanufactured product. The testing, measurement and quality control methods used are similar to those employed during the original manufacture. The only difference is that in remanufacturing, inspection is much more rigorous and on a 100% basis because in remanufacturing all parts are presumed faulty until proven otherwise.

Key Repair Recondition Remanufacture

Greater warranty given

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Figure 1. 2002).

3.2

Greater labour content

A hierarchy of secondary market processes (Ijomah

The remanufacture process

Remanufacturing begins with the arrival of a used product (a core) at the remanufacturer’s facility where they undergo the following activities. For some organisations, an inspection may also have been undertaken prior to the used product arriving at the remanufacturer’s facility. However, the steps below and this article are concerned with what happens following arrival at the remanufacturer’s facility: . initial inspection of the core (used product) to assess

.

. .

.

basic information. This would include type, model, year of manufacture and obvious damage (e.g. in order to assess whether it is worth remanufacture as some types of damage may have rendered it beyond remanufacture); disassembly: to gain access to the internal components for cleaning, examination and rectification; cleaning: to remove contamination such as dirt and rust; component remanufacturing: to return internal components to at least as new performance specification. This step involves the testing for fitness of the cleaned components as an assessment must be undertaken to identify the type and extent of work required to bring the component back to at least as new condition (remanufacture); replacement of parts that cannot be remanufactured: the reasons here include (i) their design does not permit their bringing back to at least as new performance specification, (e.g. because of their material or manufacture method); (ii) their replacement is mandatory, (e.g. legislation prohibits substances that they contain or require while being used); (iii) they are damaged beyond remanufacture (e.g. tolerances are too tight) or (iv) their remanufacture would be too costly (e.g. close to or

All remanufacturing operations have this basic structure but the order in which these activities, shown in Figure 2 and described in Ijomah et al. (1999), are undertaken may differ between different product types (Sundin 2002) 3.3

The importance of remanufacturing

Remanufacturing is an important reuse strategy in waste management, wealth and employment creation, material recovery and environmentally conscious manufacturing (McCaskey 1994, Hormozi 1996, Lund 1996, Guide 1999). Research by Lund (1984) indicates that 85% of the weight of a remanufactured product may come from used components, that such products have comparable quality to equivalent new products, but require 50– 80% less energy to produce and that remanufacturing can provide 20 – 80% production cost savings in comparison to conventional manufacturing. Remanufacturing can reduce environmental impacts because for most goods, raw material production and the subsequent shaping and machining processes produce the highest energy use and CO2 emissions. Since remanufacturing bypasses these processes, it reduces CO2 output via manufacture. Also, remanufacturing helps divert a significant proportion of production waste from landfill, thus helping to limit pollution from landfill and the pressure on landfill space. Research by Biffa (2002) indicated that the UK had only 6.5 years of space remaining in existing landfills, that by DEFRA (2003) determined that house prices decrease near landfill sites making such sites undesirable in the urban areas where they are most needed. This is a great problem for highly populated countries such as the UK because of the demand for new houses and government initiatives to increase housing stocks. Although remanufacturing has had a low profile, it has been a viable economic activity for many decades. Research records in excess of 73,000 firms engaged in some sort of remanufacturing in the late 1990s, in the USA alone (Hauser and Lund 2003). Although designing products for recyclability has received more attention among design and manufacturing engineers (Ishii 1998), remanufacturing may provide greater environmen-

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Company’s stored core Clean core Cleaned core Disassemble core Dirty components Clean components Cleaned components

Remanufactured components

Remanufacture component

Store

Order Customer Remanufactured components

Build product

Assembled product Labelled remanufactured product

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Test product Failed product

Figure 2.

A generic remanufacturing process flowchart (Ijomah 2002).

tal and financial benefits than recycling. For example, many designers are reluctant to use recycled materials because of uncertain quality or supply standards (Chick and Micklethwaite 2002). Also, additional energy is required to reform recycled materials into manufactured products because the energy embodied in the materials and purchased parts assembled in the initial manufacture of the product is lost during the recycling process (Jacobs 1991). It is important to consider products’ potential for remanufacturing in the early stages of design because the design stage sets the product’s capabilities. The following section briefly describes some research undertaken in design-for-remanufacture. This list of useful research is not exhaustive as not all research in this area can be included due to space constraints.

3.4 Design-for-remanufacture research Much of the work to enhance products’ potential for remanufacturing has been concerned with developing design for remanufacturing guidelines to assist designers because designers lack remanufacturing knowledge. An example of research in this area includes a tool, Repro2 (Gehin et al. 2005), for assessing the remanufacturability of proposed designs via their comparison to current remanufacturable products. Sundin (2001) analysed household appliances to determine enhanced-remanufacturability designs. This work was extended by Sundin and Bras (2005) who proposed that cleaning and repairing are the most critical remanufacturing activities and that remanufacturability would be enhanced if designers focused on facilitating them. Their work culminated in the development of the RemPro-matrix that shows the relationship between product properties and remanufacturing activities.

Amezquita et al. (1995) developed guidelines based on design features that assist remanufacturing and used these to identify design changes to improve automobile door remanufacturability. Their major conclusion was that there is a need for quantitative decision support metrics for characterising remanufacturability. They also used surveys of independent practitioners in the automotive sector of the remanufacturing industry to identify and rank the key factors influencing or characterising remanufacturability. Bras and Hammond (1996) used the Boothroyd and Dewhurst design-for-assembly metrics as a foundation for remanufacturability assessment metrics based on product design features. Shu and Flowers (1995) used case studies to analyse the impact of a range of fastening and joining methods on remanufacturing and other EoL options, concluding that joints facilitating recycling and assembly do not necessarily assist remanufacturability. Shu and Flowers (1999) identified the priorities and general guidelines for various DFX methodologies to propose that remanufacturing’s priority is the minimisation of the effort required to separate materials for recycling, and that its general guidelines are the minimisation of damage to parts to be reused and isolation of expected damage to removable and replaceable parts. Williams et al. (2000) analysed toner-cartridge remanufactures’ waste streams to suggest design alterations to enhance toner-cartridge remanufacturability. Sherwood and Shu (2000) studied an OEM waste stream to develop a modified failure mode and effects analysis to facilitate remanufacturing. Mangun and Thurston (2002) presented a decision tool to help decide when products should be taken back as well as the most appropriate component EoL options. The tool includes a model to help introduce redesign issues in product design. Ijomah et al. (2007) and Ijomah (2008) addressed the lack

Important Critical Very important Very important Critical Critical Fairly important Fairly important Critical Very important Very important Critical Critical Fairly important

Critical

Important Critical Critical Very important Very important Critical Fairly important

important Fairly important Not important

Scale showing importance of factor to successful remanufacturing:

Very important

Fairly important Critical Important Important Very important Critical Fairly important Important Critical Very important Important Very important Critical Fairly important Critical Very important Very important Very important Critical Critical Fairly important Flexible staff Product quality Product price Lead time Product knowledge Technical skills Product history

Company E Company D Company C Company B Company A

Key remanufacturing success factors identified from case studies.

Table 1 below shows the desirable characteristics for success in remanufacturing, obtained from case studies involving six remanufacturing organisations. The remanufacturers believed that low production cost is important as it permits them to lower selling price. This was said to be because remanufactured products must be ‘typically at least 25% less expensive’, than new alternatives because customers would not purchase a used product if its price is similar to that of the new alternative. Remanufacturers ‘rejected jobs that were beyond economic repair (BER) unless there were strategic reasons’. Here, BER was typically assessed as costing above 70 and 65% of the new product cost. They also believed that remanufactured products must also be of high quality to attract buyers because many customers would be unwilling to purchase unreliable products, no matter how inexpensive they are. They stated that ‘quality and price are makers and breakers’ because ‘we need the quality for customers’ confidence and to distinguish our products from repaired and reconditioned ones’ and ‘we need the low prices to draw customers from new products especially given the snobbery remanufactured products encounter’. Lead time was also said to be important because ‘customers are likely to purchase alternatives such as new or reconditioned products rather than wait for long periods for remanufactured products to be available’. However, some remanufacturers felt that short lead time was ‘less critical than price and quality because if the price and quality are good enough customers may be prepared to wait it out (within reason) but if the quality and price are not right then the products won’t shift’. Thus, remanufactured products must have high quality, low price and short lead time, to compete effectively against alternatives such as reconditioned and new products. Table 1 also shows that the ability to disassemble without damage to components impacts on the majority of these requirements. In the case of product quality, remanufacturers require access to products’ internal components in order to ensure their adequate cleaning, rectification and testing to verify their effective remanufacture. This typically necessitates the product’s disassembly. In the case of lead time, remanufacturers believe

Company F

Results

Table 1.

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4.

Impact of disassembly potential

of effective design for remanufacture guidelines. Other such research includes (Rose et al. 2000, Lamberts 2005, Bogue 2007). Although these researches are commendable, they do not address the issue of extending remanufacturing to products with volatile technological change rates. It is important to extend remanufacturing to such products because they comprise WEEE, the fastest growing waste source in the EU. The following sections will describe the AD concept and its application to enabling extension of remanufacturing into WEEE.

None Very high Very high Very high Small Small to high depending on product Small

W.L. Ijomah and J.D. Chiodo

Desirable Characteristic

250

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

4 0 0 0 0 0 13

23 0 2 5 0 0 23

9 5 1 7 0 0 7

7 28 32 21 43 43 0

None (43) Very high (43) Very high (43) Very high (43) Very small (10) Varies; product dependent (15) Very small (43)

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Desirable characteristics Flexible staff Product quality Product price Short lead time Product knowledge Technical skills Product history

Impact of disassembly potential on desirable characteristics (no. of respondents in brackets) Critical Very important Important Fairly important Not important

Typical assessment of the significance of the success factors.

that rapid disassembly is critical to process jobs quickly. In the case of product price, rapid non-destructive disassembly reduces cost. This is because low disassembly times typically equate to lower labour costs while nondestructive disassembly equates to reduced virgin component use, because a greater quantity of used components can be reclaimed for use in remanufacturing. Disassemblability also impacts on Technical skills because the more difficult a product is to disassemble, then the greater is the level of skill required for its effective disassembly without damage to components. Thus, the ability for rapid, non-destructive disassembly is a major remanufacturing requirement because disassembly is a critical and initial activity in remanufacturing. However, the current design of products often prohibits or makes their disassembly costly. In fact, all the remanufacturers could quote instances where poor product disassembly potential had prevented them from undertaking remanufacturing or had caused unnecessary costs because of the resource involved in disassembly. Table 2 shows the responses to the importance of the success factors via the workshops and interviews that were undertaken to verify and validate the case-study findings. In excess, 60 remanufacturers and academics were included in a total of five workshops involving mixed groups of academics and industrialists; and interviews of 20 remanufacturers. It can be seen that the results of the workshops and interviews corroborate that of the case studies with respondents stating that the impact of disassembly is ‘critical’ to price, quality and lead time. Table 2 also shows that respondents’ assessment of the importance of product price, product quality and remanufacturing lead time to success ranged from ‘important’, through to ‘very important’ to ‘critical’. Since ease of disassembly was identified as a critical remanufacture enabler, workshops and interviews were undertaken to document product features that hinder and assist disassembly. In the case of features that hinder disassembly, the most frequently cited examples included ‘some types of riveting’, ‘welding’ and ‘adhesives, e.g. epoxy resin’. The workshop participants typically felt that ‘although rivets were not as bad as welding they were still time consuming and thus had a poor impact on costeffective disassembly’. Remanufacturers in general felt that in considering product potential for disassembly, the fact that non-destructive disassembly is possible is not adequate on its own and that ‘speed and cost of disassembly should also be prime considerations’. In the case of features that facilitate disassembly, the most commonly stated examples were threaded fasteners and ‘breakable snap fits’ and ‘modularity’. Novel disassembly techniques were the least frequently stated methods but were considered by the workshops to be the most innovative, but also the least likely to be used. The workshop participants felt that shape memory fasteners

Table 2.

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could be highly successful in enabling remanufacture as it had proved useful in related processes such as recycling. However, they were unsure whether it could enable costeffective remanufacture because of the expense of shape memory polymers (SMP). As a result, analysis was undertaken to investigate the potential for the SMP technique, AD to enable profitable remanufacture in WEEE. The following sections describe the AD technique, and illustrate and substantiate its application in extending profitable remanufacture to WEEE.

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5.

AD domain

AD is a process by which an EoL product can nondestructively, self-dismantle with the aid of embedded smart devices that are triggered by external energy input and are designed as part of the manufacturing and controlled hierarchical disassembly of the host product. AD is particularly useful for complex assemblies typically with disassembly problems such as the requirement for very high product environmental performance (e.g. extreme temperatures or vibration). In this study, three types of materials are employed within AD; the first two being either metallic or plastic. This process includes NiTi or Cu-based ‘shape memory alloys’ (SMA) for AD-SMA, used for actuator devices. Polyurethane-based ‘SMP’ are used for AD-SMP releasable fastener devices. Actuation of the SMA and SMP would occur just outside world ambient temperatures for safety and practical reasons and would only change shape under the predetermined temperature. This ‘predetermined’ temperature is based on material composition and is therefore consistent and stable. This trigger temperature is referred to as ‘Tx’. The third ‘material’ is a conformal coating spray or ‘interstitial layer’ (IL); hence AD-IL. With SMA in actuators’ design, the fastening elements of the products can be effectively forced apart at the compositionspecific SMA Tx range; Austenite starting to finishing temperature (As-f), as the SMA actuator device lies dormant until exposed to its full Tx. SMA is, therefore, stable in two different temperature states. When used in the design of a ‘smart material device’ (SMD), SMA is a force provider when triggered at this very narrow temperature bandwidth As-f, typically 148C. SMA can be one-way (Tautzenberger 1990), two-way (Gordon 1990) and less often, multi-way when used in the design of an actuator. SMP act differently as they immediately lose shape integrity over a small temperature band with no accompanying force. They are, therefore, useful in the design of releasable fasteners capable of significant metamorphic shape change. SMP can be ‘called’ when triggered within a specific temperature exposure and range (Shirai and Hayash 1994). This is accompanied by a sharp drop in modulus. This engineering feature allows effective disassembly when the gripping portion of the SMP fastener looses its ability to hold its host together at its composition-specific glass transition tempera-

ture (Tg). When employed by AD, this would occur within its full temperature range completed at Tx. Just like SMA, the SMP SMD lies dormant within its host assembly during the product’s use phase, waiting to be triggered at EoL. Besides shape memory materials, there are other ‘smart’ materials that can be employed to facilitate AD. These include engineering polymers, smart films, biodegradable layers, adhesives, substances and liquids (ADR Ltd 2002). The technology offers a variety of dismantling applications. Numerous self-disassembling techniques have been investigated with varying levels of success (Masui et al. 1999, Nishiwaki et al. 2000, Li et al. 2001, Braunschweig 2004, Jones et al. 2004, Klett and Blessing 2004). It has been considered that these approaches can be categorised as automatic processes but labelled as ‘product-embedded disassembly’ (Duflou et al. 2006). Different forms of AD also exist (see, e.g. Tanskanen and Takala (2002)). The following sections describe the application of AD to optimise disassembly in WEEE. 6. Potential hurdles of AD within remanufacturing It is foreseen that some notable obstacles would likely persist with the initial employment of AD within remanufacturing. To asses these issues, we have highlighted four areas of concern. Design: when including EoL triggering devices within the design of the product to eventually be made, used, returned, recycled and then be included in future designs, numerous considerations, not normally part of the design process, must be considered. The concerns are knowledge of triggering methods, cost, activation allowance and EoL design. Besides considering a feasible EoL, there lies the issue of competing products that are ubiquitously only considering the design for the use phase. This presents major changes to what designers and engineers would be used to. Knowledge of triggering mechanisms and temperatures is crucial to the design phase. The most obvious concerns are that of design knowledge of the inclusion and employment dynamics of active devices within candidate products. With a likely trigger being temperature, AD devices must have smart or ‘made smart’ materials with a ‘Trigger Temperature’ (Tx) outside of the normal storage, transport and use phases of the product, eventually requiring EoL triggering prior to its majority of components being intact for remanufacturing. Manufacturing: for the initial manufacturing, this is perhaps the area of least concern since AD devices would simply have to be specified as part of the bill of materials, and can easily be assembled under normal operation temperatures. However, manufacturing an AD device that is to be reused, if that route is chosen, means collecting these devices at the AD EoL process so that they could be retrained (subject for only some SMA AD devices) for remanufacture prior to subsequent reintroduction into the

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International Journal of Sustainable Engineering market place. This will add a cost burden of collection, retraining and replacing into the product for subsequent remanufacture prior to its second introduction into the market place. However, retraining is only a concern if one force providing AD device (SMA type) is used. This will not be the case for CuZnAl-SMA in which two-way devices are used. The same issue of not requiring retraining applies to SMP or other ‘made-smart’ applications of the technology such as smart: films, biodegradable layers, adhesives, substances and liquids. Use phase: the ‘active’ event of AD must obviously be avoided during this phase. Therefore, triggering phenomenon, usually temperature or in combination with other triggers including vibration, tumbling, etc. would be specified outside of normal ranges. These, for example, would, highly dependent on the type of product, be likely to be below 508C or above 708C. However, smart materials exist well outside of this range, so the envelope of choice offers triggering temperatures between above 2008C and below 08C. Generally, the outer range temperatures cost much more. Of course, triggering the AD devices would require non-destructive damage to the candidate product for remanufacture. Again, this is highly dependent on the type of product and its use phase environment. EoL logistics: An AD device that lies dormant in the use phase and then forces either actively or passively, its host product during the EoL process requires an additional level of consideration for remanufacture. For controlled hierarchical non-destructive dismantling, considerable design knowledge and cost would be added to the creation and dismantling or remanufacturing phase of the product development. However, these costs would in effect be ‘recaptured’ through the savings evident in a remanufactured product. This is particularly of interest since subsequent remanufacturing of the same product would have to endure multiple AD events. Logistical questions do arise with the consideration of Tx affecting the PCBs at remanufacture. This is where a balance is struck between Tx and integrity of the PCB is to be considered. If the Tx is chosen to be in the vicinity from 70 to 1008C, there lies plenty of grace for the integrity of the PCB while still keeping Tx lower as to avoid higher environmental impact through higher energy requirements. Furthermore, if higher Tx is required, PCBs can normally handle temperatures much higher than 1008C. Given a Tx range from above 2008C and below 08C, a balance can easily be made. 7.

Application of AD to WEEE disassembly

In conventional disassembly, EoL products are dismantled manually, typically with pneumatic or hand tools. Manual disassembly has been used in recycling plants to varying levels of success since the early 1990s. However, in high turn-over life-cycle products such as those in the

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technology sector (e.g. telecommunication and other hand-held electronic products), manual disassembly hinders profitable disassembly. For profitable remanufacture of such products, significant economic efficiencies are required in their disassembly. AD aims include hierarchical, controlled, non-destructive and specific product component release to optimise reuse from macro to micro dismantling. The technology has been applied with great success in numerous items from automotive ECUs through to laptops to home entertainment products and their sub-assemblies. However, the purpose has been to facilitate a step-change improvement in recycling by, for example, increasing the quantities of precious metals (e.g. aluminium), recovered from precious metal-dominated products. This research differs from previous work by investigating AD use in advancing remanufacture and specifically to extend remanufacture into a product sector where it is currently not economically viable. The products ranging from hand-held electronics to larger automotive electronics, were modified with embedded AD-SMP, ADSMA devices or an AD-IL. The tests undertaken on the products included hierarchical non-destructive disassembly which is particularly useful when the requirement is for reuse of selected as opposed to all product components. Expertise in hierarchical non-destructive disassembly is timely because the volatility of environmental legislation may mean that some components not be viable for reuse because of legislative requirements. Three different AD technology variants were tested and all examples were successful with non-destructive and low mean time dismantling. Figures 3 and 4 show the successful testing for non-destructive disassembly of WEEE products prepared with the AD technology. The AD disassembly of automotive ECU, shown in Figure 4, is particularly important because ECUs are almost impossible to economically disassemble cleanly. AD disassembly times ranged from one to hundreds of seconds on products not redesigned for AD inclusion. Exact times for this study are irrelevant since any cost advantage in dismantling would only likely be realised in batch processing as for any automated economically viable system. These experiments illustrated the potential for more efficient disassembly friendly product dematerialisation design and manufacture strategies. For the highest rate of automatic dismantling control: hierarchical, non-destructive, lowest mean time, would be achieved only if the products were designed with AD from the outset. Factors to be considered include a number of guidelines described in Chiodo et al. (2000) and shown truncated in Table 3.

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Figure 3. Precious metal-dominated WEEE: AD-SMP mobile (Chiodo, ADR Ltd).

8. Potential for use of AD to enhance WEEE remanufacturing Disassembly is typically an initial and critical remanufacturing activity (Ijomah et al. 2005); thus, long disassembly times raise remanufacturing costs and lead times. Disassemblability is a key requirement for remanufacturing because of its significant impact on price, lead time and quality. In the case of price, the authors’ research in industry has shown that customers are unlikely to purchase a remanufactured product unless it is significantly less expensive than the new equivalent (e.g. Ijomah 2002). Figures quoted by remanufacturers on interview include less than 65 and 75% the price of the new alternative, by DML Devonport Ltd (Plymouth, UK), a military equipment remanufacturer and Ivor Searle Ltd (Soham, Cambridgeshire, UK) an organisation in the UK automotive remanufacture industry sector, respectively. However, high remanufacturing costs often result from resource consuming disassembly due to the high time (and hence) labour costs and the need to replace components damaged during disassembly. In the case of quality, customers are unlikely to buy a poorly functioning product, no matter how low its price. However, remanufacturing typically requires effective disassembly to ensure proper cleaning, assessment and rectification of internal components (Ijomah et al. 1999, Ijomah 2002). In the case of Table 3. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Figure 4. Metals/precious metal-dominated automotive WEEE embedded with AD-IL (Chiodo, ADR Ltd).

lead time, unless the price of new products is prohibitive, customers will purchase new alternatives rather than wait for lengthy time periods for remanufactured versions to be available. The studies described in Section 5 above illustrate AD’s benefits in ensuring cost- and time-effective, non-destructive disassembly and hence its potential to enable profitable remanufacture of products that are currently not economically viable for remanufacture. Hand-held WEEE including PDAs, calculators and mobile phones have been tested since 1996, originally for precious metal fraction reclamation (Chiodo et al. 2002), but there is also the potential for remanufacturing markets if enough through-put is achieved. Plastic-dominated products such as home entertainment and brown goods are also viable. In assemblies where high performance sealants can reduce the potential for economic remanufacture, an automatic process is required to, through triggers including temperature (Tx), vibration and shear forces (tumbling), cleanly remove the sealant from the assembly as described in ADR Ltd (2002) and Arnaiz et al. (2002). The examples in Section 5 above show that when products are designed for AD, (i) time reduction and minimal (if any) evidence of dismantling would be achieved to increase the economic viability of their remanufacture and (ii) where the product as a whole cannot be remanufactured, AD benefit of rapid, non-destructive disassembly enhances

Truncated AD design guidelines. Disassembly methods Active material choice Actuator design Product design Orchestration Use phase Output logistics Recycling

Tx, trigger methods, mechanical aid (tumbling etc.), fastener, deflection Force providers (actuators), modulus drop, dissolving, magnetic, mechanical Force control, contact, pressure, location, exposure, deflection, integrated, discrete Deflection, release allowance and passage, trigger exposure, reuse, DfE Hierarchy, Tx/time, assembly arrangement, Tx and trigger range outside of ambient exposure, creep, reliability Volume, time, cost, quality, batch throughput (product types) Markets, environmental assessment

International Journal of Sustainable Engineering the potential to utilise the product’s components in remanufacturing similar products.

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8.1

Basic financial analysis

Figure 5 shows three product categories, (precious metaldominated, plastic-dominated and metal-dominated products), where AD could enable profitable remanufacturing. The research indicated that for cost-effective remanufacture, AD must be performed in large batch disassembly, with successful batch sizes ranging from 500 to 1000 products per 10 s. Common metal-dominated products did not seem viable, but the ECU had good potential because of the high-grade aluminium content and a large printed circuit board (PCB). ECUs are of 99.9% grade Al, hence are worth collecting, especially as commodity prices continue to increase. Also, recycling aluminium (AL) means significant saving of water processing. Furthermore, most ECUs are under the engine assembly either between the firewall and the engine or further along towards the undercarriage at the rear of the vehicle. Thus, there is easy access to them while liquids, and other valuable components are being stripped. This is well documented from the authors’ work and that of others. As automotive electronics is expected to continue to increase, AD presents the opportunity for the 25% minimum cost reduction required for their profitable remanufacturing. The following sections assess the potential for viable remanufacture of plastic-dominated, common metal-dominated and precious metal-dominated end of life vehicle (ELV), WEEE products when AD-IL is applied. This process has an additional manufacture cost: the IL application. However, it requires minimal design changes and provides clean separation from adhesives, silicon and other setting bonding agents that are typical in automotive ECU applications that require high performance against the elements. End of life revenues (US$/kg) 2.50 2.00

Precious metal dominated products

1.50 1.00 0.50 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

0.50 Plastics dominated products

1.00

Disassembly efficiency

Metal dominated products CRT containing products

End of life costs (US$/kg)

Figure 5.

Product categories in EoL costs vs. disassembly.

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When such products are redesigned with AD-IL inclusion, a batch of 100 –1000 products could dismantle on average, every 10 s. Here, five batches could be processed per minute in a large-scale optimised disassembly scenario to produce 500– 5000 products per minute. At an aggregate labour rate of US$0.50 per min, this would incur labour cost of US$0.001– 0.0001 per product. Even in a worst-case scenario, where the processing of one batch would take, 5 min, (25 times slower), this would still produce very low labour costs of US$0.025– 0.0025 per product. Compared to conventional disassembly, these costs are very low as depending on the product category, the manual disassembly costs can be several dollars. In the case of plastic-dominated products, a Sony Play station, for example would typically take approximately 2.5 min to disassemble manually, resulting in a cost of approximately US$1.30. Compared to the worst-case scenario described above, the difference is a factor of 50 in favour of AD. In less pessimistic scenarios, this factor increases to 500 and above. Here, it is assumed that batch loading and unloading will not incur additional costs because similar handling activities must be undertaken for conventional disassembly. However, given the high quantity of products processed simultaneously, and the fast disassembly times, even additional costs are negligible. 9.

Conclusions

Remanufacturing is the process of returning used products to at least original performance specification from the customers’ perspective and giving them warranties at least equal to that of equivalent new products. The practice is an important reuse strategy in waste management, material recovery and environmentally conscious manufacturing because it is simultaneously highly profitable and less environmentally harmful than conventional manufacturing. The major remanufacturing barriers include poor understanding of how to design products for remanufacture. Disassembly is typically an initial and critical activity in remanufacture. However, many products are not remanufactured because they cannot be disassembled or their disassembly is expensive. This severely limits their potential for profitable remanufacturing because remanufactured products must be at least 25% cheaper than new alternatives to win customers. AD is a process by which EoL products can rapidly and non-destructively self-dismantle with the aid of embedded smart devices. The technique has been applied chiefly to facilitate a step-change improvement in recycling, by, for example, improving the levels of precious metals such as aluminium recovered from precious metal-dominated EoL products. This research differs from previous work in that it investigated AD use to extend profitable remanufacture into small EoL electrical and electronic products, a product sector where remanufacturing is currently not

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economically viable. Such a development is extremely timely because WEEE is the fastest growing EU waste stream and thus has to be addressed to support sustainable manufacturing. The research concluded that AD would enable profitable remanufacture of WEEE provided that it is undertaken in large batch disassembly environments. The authors plan as further research to investigate specific case studies and substantiate the viability and size of a market for the remanufactured, redesigned WEEE products, as redesigning products for remanufacture is pointless if there would be no demand for the remanufactured goods.

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Acknowledgements The authors wish to thank AD Research Ltd for the AD experiments and also EnviroTech Ltd, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Gaiker, Indumetal, IKP, Active Recycling Ltd and Brunel University, Lec refrigeration Plc, Ivor Searle Ltd, Price Brothers Auto Engineering, Ford Motor company, Mackies, Caterpillar remanufacturing Ltd, Millbridge domestics, University of Sheffield Audio Visual Services.

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