Improving Green Product Design with Closed-Loop Product Recovery Information

Abstract

It is widely agreed that environmental issues, from climate change to energy and water scarcity, to over exploitation of natural resources, represent critical challenges for the society. Thereby, industry has progressively adopted lean manufacturing by reducing amount of energy and materials used in the production. However, manufacturer has limitation towards improving product efficiency without feedback from user as a close loop. Knowing the complexity of environmental issues and economy changes, this paper introduces a new system framework that takes the holistic approach by capturing information at end-of-life (EoL) and feeding back to design or manufacturing in making a greener product. With complete understanding of EoL product status, it enables OEMs to develop technology diversely and at the same time rapidly incorporating environmental concept in part of the product chain. For instance, the valuable knowledge learned in EoL product put forward a more efficient way for product maintenance by cutting down time, cost and negative impact to the environment. Moreover, a greater reliable product could be achieved by utilizing appropriate material or design in particular product. This resulted in improved product design as an inherent loop in product life cycle, therefore producing greener product for better reusability, remanufacturability and recyclability. Overall, efficient EoL product recovery system enables sustainable and competitive manufacturing, and thus drives the economy growth.