Systematic product inspection and verification to improve returned product recovery

Abstract

Management of products and resources at end-of-life (EoL) includes recovery of product for reuse, remanufacturing for reviving parts and component, recycling for material contents and responsible disposal. The decisions are affected greatly by the mix of product varieties, recovery technologies, economic value, social and environmental impacts. An informed EoL product recovery decision can be accomplished when recovery aspects are better integrated in design and manufacturing phase. This paper introduces an efficient returned product assessment framework for original equipment manufacturer (OEM), where the assessment refers to design and manufacturing results. However, this integration poses challenging problem of decisions subject to uncertainties. A detailed and systematic product inspection and verification approach is proposed in this paper. It guides a decision maker to solve product recovery selection problem with optimized recovery value. This method is demonstrated with returning hair dryer.