Title: An integrated methodology for assessing physical and technological life of products for reuse

Authors: Fatida Rugrungruang, Sami Kara, Hartmut Kaebernick

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2032, Australia. ' Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2032, Australia. ' Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2032, Australia

Abstract: This paper seeks to develop methodologies that aid in predicting the remaining lifetime and reuse potential of used components. The methodologies integrate the physical and the technological life aspects for an integrated assessment. There are three core parts of this research. First, the remaining physical life of used components is derived based on the failure rate data and the statistical analysis of usage intensity. Second, the research presents the use of technology forecasting technique to predict the remaining technological life. Finally, the resulting estimations from the two aspects were combined to obtain an integrated assessment for estimating the remaining life of components. A domestic washing machine was used to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology. The results show that the proposed method is a promising tool to support decision making for reuse prior to the time consuming and costly processes such as disassembly and quality testing.

Keywords: lifetime prediction; remaining life; physical lifetime; technological lifetime; product reuse; component reuse; domestic washing machines; disassembly; quality testing; sustainable manufacturing; sustainability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSM.2009.031365

International Journal of Sustainable Manufacturing, 2009 Vol.1 No.4, pp.463 - 490

Published online: 01 Feb 2010 *

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