A product/service system (PSS) facilitates remanufacturing and thus is the article’s subject. This article presents a first quantitative analysis, through a descriptive study, of the details of a PSS design case. To do so, an example of PSS design was conducted using a real offering in the marketplace, and this design episode was analyzed through protocol analysis developed further by the authors. The results of the analysis include reasonable hypotheses: PSS design begins with needs by and value for a customer, addresses primarily life cycle activities for solutions, and ends back with value. In addition, life cycle activities, which accounted for about 30% of the episode, were found to be given a central role within PSS design. Furthermore, reasoning about problems, which spent more than 30% of the design, seems to be a new and important type of activity in PSS design as compared to physical product design. This article contributes to greater understanding of PSS design process in quantitative terms and thus to developing effective support for PSS design. Knowledge about PSS enables the understanding of remanufacturing with a more holistic perspective and thus creating an opportunity for better optimization of remanufacturers’ activities.

Abstract Manufacturers aim to design product-service systems (PSS) which integrate services with products to attain sustained competitive advantage from a life cycle perspective. PSS design should be customised solutions which are aligned to integrated stakeholders' capabilities, a subject which the extant literature has not sufficiently addressed. This paper proposes a systematic framework for the PSS solution provider to address this aim and operationalizes this through software developed for PSS design which models stakeholders' individual activities and simulates their occurrences depending on their relations. The framework stresses that integrated stakeholders' capabilities define continuing ability to generate a desired operational outcome for the customers. The paper reports a PSS design case for a laser system manufacturer and then applies the framework to it. The industrial experts' views on this framework reveal that it helps to develop PSS design from a holistic systems approach which facilitates a change in the designer's mindset from a product-centric to a systems-centric. The level of trust and transparency required for this framework is argued to be absent in most industrial sectors, being one of the foremost limitations for implementation of PSS.

As global demand for consumer goods continues to rise, the problem of waste electrical and electronic equipment (or e-waste) increases. E-waste is of particular concern to the world’s governments and environmentalists alike, not just because of the sheer quantity that is being produced annually, but also because e-waste often contains both hazardous materials and scarce or valuable materials. Much research is now focused upon how this waste can be treated safely, economically, and in an environmentally sound manner. This paper presents the findings from a literature review and case study research conducted as a small part of the Globally Recoverable and Eco-friendly E-equipment Network with Distributed Information Service Management (GREENet) project. The GREENet project aims to share knowledge and expertise in e-waste treatment across Europe (in this case, the UK) and China. The focus of this particular study was upon ‘design for remanufacture’ and e-waste in China: as a remanufacturing industry begins to emerge, are Chinese original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) prepared to design more remanufacturable products and could electrical and electronic products become a part of this industry? Findings presented in this paper suggest that design for remanufacture could become more relevant to Chinese OEMs in the near future, as environmental legislation becomes increasingly stringent and a government remanufacturing pilot scheme expands. However, findings from case studies of Chinese e-waste recyclers would suggest that electrical and electronic products are not presently highly suited to the remanufacturing process.

The remanufacturing industry as a whole and the automotive sector in particular have, over the years, proven to be beneficial to the environment and economically lucrative to the companies involved as well as to their customers. However, remanufacturing is associated with complicating characteristics, not least to mention the process of core acquisition.The automotive industry is one of the earliest adapters of remanufacturing. Parts like engines, brake calipers and servo pumps are common targets for remanufacturing. Modern cars also have several embedded computers, often referred to as electronic control units that communicate, share information and verify each other over a Controller Area Network (CAN) bus. Due to their high value and an increasing trend in the amount of CAN bus mechatronic devices, interest in their remanufacture is growing.Previous research has shown that it is preferable that the remanufacturer is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), or has a close relation to the OEM, in order to achieve a well-performing remanufacturing business. In the automotive industry, there are many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that perform remanufacturing; for these enterprises, the challenges to have a profitable business are even harder. This is because the OEMs will not release any information on the communication parameters and therefore will not support the independent remanufacturing business. As a consequence, the independent remanufacturers, often SMEs, have to perform substantial reverse engineering.This paper presents a qualitative research study, based on interviews at SMEs regarding challenges linked to the reverse logistics of SMEs remanufacturing and trading used automotive mechatronic devices, to identify specific challenges concerning the collection phase of automotive mechatronic remanufacturing. Challenges previously identified by researchers are confirmed, additional challenges within the collection phase are recognized, and challenges expected to arise when remanufacturing and trading automotive electronic CAN bus mechatronic devices are identified. The major concern for the involved companies when commencing future challenges is the handling, transportation and storing of cores. Even though the cores today mainly consist of mechanical devices, these challenges are still present; they are expected, however, to become even more crucial when cores contain a higher degree of mechatronic devices.

The remanufacturing plan of perfect cost makes reference to the remanufacturing plan of an optimal solution of the economic lot-sizing problem with remanufacturing (ELSR). In this paper, we address the problem of determining the quantities of the remanufacturing plan of perfect cost in an independent way. Assuming that the periods where remanufacturing is carried out are known in advance and certain other assumptions on the costs, we can show that the total remanufacturing quantity of a remanufacturing plan of perfect cost can be determined separately and in a time-effective way. We consider that the theoretical results obtained in this paper contribute to a deeper knowledge of the characteristics of the ELSR optimal solutions. Thus, the results obtained can be used to develop an effective algorithm for solving the ELSR.

Nowadays, as mechatronic and electronic systems have found their way into vehicles, the technological knowledgebase of traditional remanufacturing companies erodes rapidly and even the industrial principle of remanufacturing is at risk. Due to the fact that modern cars incorporate up to 80 of these mechatronic and electronic systems that are communicating with each other e.g. via the vehicle controller area network (CAN), remanufacturing of these automotive systems requires innovative reverse engineering knowhow, methodological innovations and new technologies, especially focusing on the tasks testing and diagnostics of systems and their subassemblies. The European research project REMAN, conducted by Bayreuth University in cooperation with two other universities and eight industrial partners, focuses on these needs in order to enable companies to remanufacture modern automotive mechatronics and electronics with innovative reverse engineering skills as well as to develop appropriate and affordable testing and diagnostics technologies. In order to operate and test the mechatronic device with CAN interface outside the vehicle environment, an appropriate simulation of the vehicle network and all connected sensors of the device under test (DUT) is essential. This implies an electrical analysis of the connectors of the DUT, a content-related analysis of the CAN-bus, a sensor hardware simulation and a CAN-bus simulation. All electrical measurements and results were taken using conventional multimeters or oscilloscopes. The CAN-bus analysis and simulations were conducted using the Vector Informatics software tool CANoe (Version 7.1) and a suitable CAN-bus hardware, e.g. the CANcardXL and the IOcab8444opto. All hardware simulations were executed with a conventional wave form generator or a microcontroller evaluation board (Olimex AVR-CAN) and an appropriate electric setup. In order to initially readout the failure memory and to investigate the diagnostic communication of the DUT, garage testers such as Bosch KTS 650 or Rosstech VAG-COM were used. The results of the project are application-orientated methods, test benches and skills for remanufacturing companies to find out the working principles of the CAN-bus communication between automotive mechatronic and electronic systems within vehicles. The knowhow presented in this article enables remanufacturing companies to remanufacture modern automotive mechatronic and electronic systems which are communicating via the CAN-bus and similar communication types.