The Evaluation of Product Upgradability toward Remanufacture

Remanufacture means are favourably applied to combat with the rampant damages to the environment by the waste from discarded end-of-life products. However, restoring a product just “as it was” often fails to make it acceptable in the market because of fast changing technologies and fashions. To address and accommodate the generational or incremental changes in functionality, the information of products’ potential for upgrade is indispensable for an effective remanufacture practice. By using fuzzy set theory, a mathematical model is formulated in this paper to provide a comprehensive representation and evaluation of product upgradability for remanufacture, providing the indications for any further improvement to base on.

Keywords:

Remanufacture , Generational variety , Upgradability , Modelling , Fuzzy set theory