Impact of human resources on remanufacturing process, internal complexity, perceived quality of core, numerosity, and key process indicators

Abstract

• Managers must pay special attention to retain specialized personnel; indirect effects from human resources are significant. • Experience is the most important element of remanufacturing process and it´s required personnel to stay in the company. • Because of a bad perception of quality core, cost of spare partes and engineering changes will increase. • Because of a bad perception of quality core, total cost, energy consumption and processing time will increase. This article assesses the impact of human resources experience and its training level on key process indicators, perceived quality of core, and internal complexity of remanufactured metal-mechanic products. These five elements were integrated as latent variables composed of 13 observed variables and associated through seven hypotheses. Data was gathered from six remanufacturing companies located in the Northern Border of Mexico, including 480 different metal-mechanic remanufactured products such as auto parts, molds for plastic injection molding, and turbine components. Hypotheses were validated using a Structural Equation Model and partial least square. Results indicate that the experience and training of human resources has a positive impact on the perceived quality of core and key process indicators, but not on internal complexity of the remanufacturing process; however, these variables are indirectly associated through perceived quality of core and key process indicators.