Opportunities for Industry 4.0 to Support Remanufacturing

Remanufacturing is the process of bringing end-of-life products back to good-as-new. It plays a critical role in decoupling economic growth from growth in resource use, and in accelerating the circular economy. However, the uptake of remanufacturing activities faces obstacles. This paper reviews the...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Shanshan Yang, Aravind Raghavendra M. R., Jacek Kaminski, Helene Pepin
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2018-07-01
Series:Applied Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/8/7/1177
Description
Summary:Remanufacturing is the process of bringing end-of-life products back to good-as-new. It plays a critical role in decoupling economic growth from growth in resource use, and in accelerating the circular economy. However, the uptake of remanufacturing activities faces obstacles. This paper reviews the challenges encountered by the remanufacturing sector and discusses how the Industry 4.0 revolution could help to effectively address these issues and unlock the potential of remanufacturing. Two case studies are included in this paper to exemplify how technology enablers from Industry 4.0 can increase efficiency, reliability, and digitization of the remanufacturing process.
ISSN:2076-3417