Establishment of remanufacturing index for locally manufactured automotive components

Remanufacturing is aimed at restoring used automotive components to their new condition with the same function. In order to facilitate remanufacturing, it is important for the industry to ascertain remanufacturability of potential automotive components in the form of quantitative metrics or index. This knowledge is essential for decision making and planning for recovery activities of the end-oflife components. Knowledge on remanufacturability at the design and development stages is also vital so that products can be designed with a high remanufacturability index. This paper reports a study that focuses on the assessment of remanufacturability of locally manufactured automotive components from the aspects of design and process attributes, criteria and their relative weights. The proposed remanufacturing index is expected to assist manufacturers in designing for remanufacturing and implementation of their recovery strategy. © (2011) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.