Remanufacturing gives products a new lease of life, and looks set to become big business as firms seek to cut costs and back sustainability. By Heath Reidy
As we step carefully out of the recession, businesses are becoming more focused on sustainability as a means of cutting costs in energy and materials. Recycling goods is one simple way of making some of these savings. But it is remanufacturing, a cost-effective and eco-friendly way of reusing goods, that is catching the business eye of many an engineering firm.
Whereas recycling is about breaking up or melting down products and using the materials for something else, remanufacturing strips down a product, then rebuilds and restores it to as good as new. The Centre for Remanufacturing and Reuse (CRR) summarises the process as “a series of manufacturing steps acting on an end-of-life part or product in order to return it to like-new or better performance, with warranty to match”.
Kerry Mashford, the director of development at the CRR, expands on this to explain the main difference between recycling and remanufacturing. “Recycling is about materials, and remanufacturing is about products,” she says. “Essentially, you are retaining the integrity of the product. You’re getting it completely back to a new state with the minimal input of energy and materials.”
Three years ago, the remanufacturing industry was valued at £5 billion. But with the recession and environmental concerns that figure is expected to grow.
| Risen from the ashes after fire damage |
ABB has remanufactured many transformers over the years, including this one at smelter firm Anglesey Aluminium Metals.
The transformer was thought to be beyond repair after a bushing failure resulted in a serious fire at the plant in June 2008.
ABB was brought in to inspect the transformer and realised that, despite its external appearance, many of its internal parts were still intact and 75% of the unit could be saved. ABB shipped the transformer to its remanufacturing factory in Norway shortly after the fire and, by November that same year, the unit had been remanufactured to an as-new condition and was shipped back to North Wales. It was back in operation in December.
These photos show how the ravaged transformer looked before and after remanufacturing. |
Remanufacturing companies have not been affected too much by the credit crunch. Mashford says that a recent survey that the CRR has conducted may well show that the recession has encouraged more companies to start remanufacturing. “What we have found anecdotally, recently, is that companies who have a significant amount of remanufacturing activity have found that their remanufacturing aspects have been resilient under the economic strain,” she says.
While Mashford can’t confirm for sure that more companies are remanufacturing today, she says that companies are becoming more interested in the idea of remanufacturing and exploring the benefits it brings. A remanufactured product, for instance, tends to be cheaper than a newly manufactured one and is better for the environment because materials are reused and not scrapped.
Mashford says that companies are now starting to see the many advantages that remanufacturing has, besides the obvious ticks in the plus column – reducing carbon emissions and cost cutting. It provides a secure supply of rarer metals, as materials can be reused, without companies having to look for new ones. She says this is particularly beneficial for those rare earth materials that China has said it plans to stop exporting from 2015.
Mashford also says that there is no real difference between a manufactured product and one that has been remanufactured. In some cases, in fact, the reliability and lifespan of a remanufactured product can be even better than that of a new product, especially as a remanufactured product can be remanufactured more than once.
“The lifetime of a remanufactured product can easily be as long as the first life and it can then be remanufactured again,” she says. “In theory there is no limit to it.”
ABB is an example of a company that remanufactures products, specialising mainly in transformers at its factory in Drammen, Norway. The company says that it has seen an increase in remanufacturing transformers over the past two years, saying that people are beginning to understand that the life expectancy of a remanufactured transformer is just the same as that of a new one, while offering a cost-effective and speedier option.
Gavin Allen, operations manager for the transformer service division of ABB, says: “The demand on new transformers globally has gone really high. At the moment we are taking advantage of the fact that new transformers are expensive and the lead times are longer.” ABB’s latest project has seen it remanufacture a 40-year-old failed generator step-up transformer for Scottish Power’s Longannet power station in Fife. Scottish Power asked ABB to remanufacture the transformer because sourcing a new one would have taken more than two years.
The transformer is 270 tonnes, at its dry shipping weight, and described as the company’s biggest challenge, as it is the largest single unit it has ever repaired.
“The sheer size of the unit in the factory has meant that it has taken a lot of floor space,” says Allen. “Lifting has been an issue, and some of our lifting equipment has had to be modified.”
The transformer wasn’t working because the windings concealed inside it had failed. It also had a corroded core, which is the frame that holds the windings in place. As a result, ABB has had to replace all of the internal components of the transformer, including the core, which was rebuilt on site by the core manufacturing team. Some of the external components have also had to be refurbished and cleaned up.
Allen says: “Effectively we are producing a brand-new transformer, but within the existing tank.”
| Setting a standard for the industry |
A new British standard has been launched for remanufactured goods.
The Centre for Remanufacturing and Reuse (CRR) has been working with the British Standards Institution to develop the standard.
The standard will be promoted to coincide with a congress on remanufacturing that will take place in Warwickshire in March. The aim of the standard is to address the customer perception that remanufactured goods are second hand, as well as giving high-quality remanufacturers an opportunity to differentiate their services from manufactured goods.
The CRR’s Kerry Mashford says: “It will enable remanufacturers to stamp a standard on their product, which they can then use as a level of comfort for the customer. The hope is that it will enable both customer comfort and differentiation between the manufacturer and the remanufacturer. I hope it will make a big difference, or at least provide an opportunity to do that. And combine that with making people more aware of the benefits of remanufacturing.”
Meanwhile, the CRR has launched an online tool that can help companies to decide whether a product is suitable for remanufacturing.
The tool, called ReOpt, is available for free on the CRR’s website (http://www.remanufacturing.org.uk/.org.uk). It takes into account the product and its design, its life expectancy, and the market. The tool also gives companies things to think about to make a product easier to remanufacture.
Mashford says: “Companies can have a look at the product they have got and its market and understand whether they have got circumstances that would be conducive to remanufacturing.” |
The transformer was sent to the Norway factory early last year. All the internal work on the transformer has been done and the unit is now in the process of being reassembled, ready to be tested and shipped back to Scotland in March.
It is expected to last for as long as 30 years, which is the life expectancy of a new transformer. Allen says it could even be remanufactured again, or upgraded, after this milestone.
Meanwhile, bearings manufacturer SKF also has its own remanufacturing facility. This mainly deals with large bearings that are used in machinery for steel and paper mills and minerals processing.
Paul Dysiewicz is the engineering manager for the service division of SKF. He says that, years ago, old or worn bearings would automatically be scrapped because of the big cost of disassembling the machines on which they were used. It was thought it was cheaper to throw away an old bearing and just put a new one in its place. But now that’s all changed.
“More recently, folk have got a bit more conscious about cost and sustainability,” he says, which has made them think more about remanufacturing.
Dysiewicz says that, in principle, any bearing can be remanufactured, unless, for instance, it has signs of fatigue. The whole remanufacturing process can take just a few weeks, which is often quicker and more cost-effective than replacing a bearing with a new one. This can be because new bearings have long lead times, as raw materials are needed to make them. “The difference with remanufacturing is, you are not starting with raw materials,” he says. “You are essentially taking a bearing, you have all the components and you are just looking at how best to refurbish it.”
Remanufacturing a large bearing is a multi-stage process that involves disassembling, cleaning and restoring parts. The bearing can then be deep polished or, if more work is required, regrinding is often used. This involves removing parts of the metal, such as regrinding the inner and outer ring of the bearing to bring it back to the required condition.
Polishing and grinding machines are used throughout the remanufacturing process, as well as flexible equipment that can cater for different sizes and types of bearings. Dysiewicz says: “You are not necessarily going to be refurbishing a batch of identical bearings, so your equipment has got to be more flexible and more adaptable to a wider range of bearings.”
Mashford of the CRR says that, despite more companies choosing to remanufacture, the customer perception that a remanufactured product is second class, no matter how good its quality, can still be an issue. She adds, however, that these beliefs are changing as “people are more receptive because of seeing the potential sustainability benefits” of remanufactured products.
As well as hoping that this trend continues, Mashford says she would like to see people take different attitudes to the way they use products in the future. “I’d like to see us moving towards becoming custodians of products and materials rather than consumers of them, so we don’t think of throwing things away at the end of the day,” she says.
“Increasingly, we will be doing remanufacturing, and I would like to see the policy and regulatory frameworks support and recognise the benefits.”
© PE Publishing, 27 January 2010
