Environmental Impact and Cost Evaluation in Remanufacturing Business Decision Support

Abstract

The research implements a business decision support system to evaluate environmental and economic implications for different end of life alternatives strategies. The case study described in the paper is the evaluation of end of life automotive engine. In detail, the analysis consists of the evaluation of environmental impacts and economic costs of engine remanufacturing process. In particular, will be compared three different alternatives: remanufacturing, reuse and recycling (material recovery). Thanks to remanufacturing, it is possible anyway to increase end-of-life benefits, compared with recycling, avoiding, from a life cycle perspective, the manufacturing process of new products through refurbishing or reuse, preventing at the same time certain generation of waste. Results will be shown in a bi-dimensional graph displaying the three alternatives with their economic revenue and environmental gain. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2014.