Lately, there has been a lot of buzz about the new and emerging technologies in manufacturing that are likely to produce major industry changes in the coming months and years. One such area of technology, as identified by the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) group, is remanufacturing.
But what exactly does that mean?
Over the years, the industry has come to realize that one-way, non-circular processes that take products from manufacturers to landfills are no longer sustainable. This is because the negative environmental and economic impacts of simply discarding manufactured products that reach their “end of life” have become too great to ignore.
Manufacturers are seeing the need, as well as the potential business value, from turning the outdated process into a cyclical process where products get reused, rather than dumped into already-overflowing landfills. The advancement of technology over the years has allowed for remanufacturing to salvage and reuse old parts without compromising the quality of the remanufactured product. “Reman” systems are applying innovative thinking so that new processes, stringent quality checks and re-engineered supply chains can return worn, discarded, end-of-life products to a “like-new” state with comparable performance and warranty.