A case for remanufacturing?
I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Third Stakeholder Conference of the Centre for Remanufacturing and Reuse the other day, which got me thinking about sustainability in general and the long term future of those companies in the UK that still actually manufacture something in particular (considering we appear to have spent the last 20 years running heel for leather to a service economy model – mmm… could that be why we’re in such a pickle now?).
The automotive industry has understood the benefits of this practice for over 20 years; buy a new clutch assembly and chances are that it is remanufactured – in fact, the only ‘virgin’, OEM clutches that go into motor vehicles are those that go into new ones.
Yet most other manufacturers don’t get the logic and - in these days of constrained consumer budgets - the business sense.
For instance, most mobile phones have masses of capability beyond that which we are able to get to grips with today; consumers don’t need the extra functionality and actually don’t use 65% plus of the existing functionality built into our handsets. So if the consumer just wants ‘sexy’, why don’t handset manufacturer build remanufacturing capability at the outset?
After all, the consumer still wants their free upgrade every 12 months, style tastes change frequently… but the functionality of the handset hasn’t really developed much past about 5 years ago - we tried the 3G thing and that was a failure; more of us are accessing the internet on our handsets, but it’s costly as most sites are content and image rich so your fair use is pretty much used up minutes after connection and we were already connecting with the internet in the days when new handsets looked like the ones they used in “The Matrix”!
When your old handset goes back, you could strip it down, replace any worn parts, re-cover it and off you go. What are the benefits?
- If you are properly tooled up, you can remanufacture at a fraction of the cost of manufacturing a new handset from the PCB up
- In a financially constrained economy, you can sell new style handsets at a lower price and still grow your market share
- If you are supplying upgrades for free under your contract terms, you are buying handsets at a lower price and securing your profit margins
- You are maximising the full life cycle of the materials and by so doing you are benefiting the planet
Notice how that last point snuck in? Before you start baulking at having to consider the environment in your financials, there are 3 sound economic reasons for considering a tactical change in your manufacturing process.
What else could you remanufacture? Well, how about just about every electronic gadget and gizmo you can think of? What about anything and everything that contains cogs, wheels, gears, tyres, pistons, etc.? In this country the construction industry is already getting into this in a big way (including remanufacturing everything from equipment components all the way up to actual houses!).
Now, a biro may be just too small and insignificant to remanufacture (but at least the plastics are recycled and made into fleece tops), but look at your own organisation… if you manufacture, there is probably a good business case for re-engineering your business to a, for instance, 60/40 split for man/re-man. Think about it!
