Evaluation System for Developing Products with Improved Part Reusability

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In circular type manufacturing systems, inner loop material circulation is more effective in terms of reduction of environmental impact and material and energy consumption. In this sense, part reuse is promising strategy especially for office automation appliances, which have short life cycles. For facilitating part reuse, however, parts should be so designed that they can be common in products of multiple generations. In this study, the evaluation methods of part reusability are discussed in three aspects : factors of design changes, modularization, and life span. Based on the analysis of records of design change of vending machines, the factors of design changes are mainly categorized into quality improvement and cost down. Design changes caused by quality requirement are indispensable, but those for cost down could be avoided by adopting alternative measures. QFD is applied for analyzing relationships between items of design changes and their factors for identifying parts, which are not necessarily changed for multiple product generations. Modularization is discussed in terms of improvement of disassimilability and reusability. A computer program has been developed for generating and evaluating alternatives of modularization based on constraint network of design specifications. Regarding evaluation of part lives, an evaluation procedure is proposed in which a required life for each part as well as physical life of parts is evaluated based on maintenance records. A dynamic simulation system is applied for analyzing limit of part deterioration.