Network agents for supporting consumers in the lifecycle management of individual parts

Abstract

To realise a sustainable society, it is essential to promote the reuse of mechanical parts using lifecycle management. However, due to unpredictable consumer-behaviour patterns, it is difficult to manage products in the use phase of a product's lifecycle. The authors propose a product lifecycle management system using network agents and RFID tags attached to individual parts, to support consumers and promote part reuse in the use phase. We have developed prototype functions of the network agent system on the basis of the product lifecycle of consumer-electronic appliances. This paper describes the functions of a prototype network agent that are developed in order to support consumer activities in the product lifecycle, and results of a simulation to investigate its effectiveness. The functions of the prototype allow the network agent to control the environmental load of a product in the consumer use phase and predict a part failure.