Szaller Á., Gallina V., Gal B., Gaal A., Fries Ch.: Quantitative benefits of the digital product passport and data sharing in remanufacturing. Procedia CIRP, 120:928-933, (2023)
As a part of the circular economy – which aims at closing the loop of materials – remanufacturing is getting more and more attention in recent years. With remanufacturing, companies are carrying out a recovery operation of used products with the aim of rebuilding a like-new condition. As various members of the supply chain are involved in this process, and product data needed for optimal operation is often missing, remanufacturing processes can become uncertain and hard to optimize. The goal of a new European Commission initiative, the digital product passport (DPP), is to facilitate information exchange between stakeholders, in order to reduce uncertainties. DPP, assigned to a product, could contain information about e.g., its origin, composition, repair and dismantling possibilities. In the paper, the essence of DPP is introduced, and a case study is presented to show the qualitative benefits of the increased amount of information about the product. A discrete event-based simulation model of three real production lines that are (re)manufacturing cylinder heads is presented. Experiments are also conducted, where quantitative benefits of using DPP are highlighted, such as decreasing unnecessary production time, increasing ratio of remanufactured parts and increasing output.