The integration of core cleaning and product serviceability into product modularization for the creation of an improved remanufacturing-product service system

Remanufacturing has been identified as the most viable product end-of-life (EOL) management strategy. However, about 80% of manufactured products currently end up as waste. Meanwhile, some of the bottlenecks in product remanufacturing could be remedied by Product Service System (PSS). Therefore, the integration of remanufacturing and PSS as an improved product offering has been increasingly recommended. However, an integration that is informed by mathematical analysis is still missing. Meanwhile, product life cycle performance is largely influenced by the decisions made at the early phase of product development (PD). Therefore, an effective remanufacturing-PSS synergy is mainly dependent on the PD decisions. Among the PD strategies, modular architecture has been identified as a technique that significantly enhances product life cycle management including ease of product disassembly, thereby improving product serviceability and cleaning processes. Consequently, modular product design is a suitable PD strategy for improved remanufacturing-PSS integration. This research identifies two factors that are critical for the success of remanufacturing and PSS: core cleaning and product serviceability. Module variants are assessed in pairs, and the modular pair compatibility indices are obtained via fuzzy system. These indices are the coefficients in the objective functions of an optimization model. The essential criteria are optimized and integrated at the modular product development phase, and the viable product configuration(s) are determined from among several product alternatives. The study provides decision guides to the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in making product configuration choice(s) that will enhance product serviceability and core cleaning so as to boost remanufacturing-PSS business offering.