Home / Circular Economy

Circular Economy
Asset Remanufacturing

Earth’s ability to regenerate its natural resources is posing significant challenges for the sustainability of our planet.

Download whitepaper: A Guide to Asset Remanufacturing

Promoting resource efficiency and reducing waste and emissions

Our planet's resources are finite. A circular economy is a must.

Increasing demand, finite resources, unsustainable practices, and environmental impacts is leading to the outpacing of the world’s use of raw materials. In a linear economy, products are designed and manufactured for single-use, with little consideration for their end-of-life disposal.

Promoting resource efficiency, reducing waste and emissions

Linear vs. Circular Economy

In a circular economy, products are designed to be reused, repaired, remanufactured, or recycled, rather than disposed of as waste.

This promotes resource efficiency, reduces waste and emissions, and creates economic opportunities by keeping materials in use for as long as possible.

Product-Life Extension and Value Retention

What are the 5 "Rs" ?

Repair

Repair returns a faulty or broken product or component back to a usable state.

Reuse

Reuse and repurposing entails utilizing or reselling the product for the same or a different application.

Refurbishment

Refurbishment improves a product through cosmetic fixes and limited upgrades to functionality.

Remanufacturing

Remanufacturing restores a used product or a component to as-good-as-when-new or better condition by way of a standardized process in an industrial setting.

Recycling

Recycling is the recovery of materials and energy contained in end-of-life products.

Minimizing manufacturing's ecological footprint

What is Remanufacturing?

Remanufacturing is the industrial process of returning end-of-service life or aged but valuable assets to same-as-when-new or better condition in a manufacturing environment. This process minimizes the ecological footprint of manufacturing by increasing the useful lifespan of assets and reducing waste.

Remanufacturing is the only approach that provides a full new life to the asset and can potentially enable multiple service lives. Hitachi R&D is deeply committed to creating innovative solutions that accelerate the transition to a circular economy and protect the planet.

Umeshwar Dayal, Corporate Chief Scientist, Hitachi R&D, and Senior Vice-President and Senior Fellow, Hitachi America Ltd., R&D Division

Circular economy stakeholders need improved visibility and better access to information

Multiple Stakeholders in a Circular Economy

To achieve circularity, it is essential for multiple stakeholders to collaborate and work towards shared goals. This requires stakeholders to optimize their operations within the broader context of the entire value-chain, rather than solely in their own limited context. To achieve this, stakeholders need improved visibility and access to information from other parts of the value-chain, while also capturing and sharing more information with their counterparts.

Circular Economy Stakeholders

Remanufacturers are crucial to increasing the life of a product and closing the loop.

Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and companies specializing in the process of remanufacturing used products or components to extend their useful life and reduce waste.

Remanufacturers experience several obstacles: core supply uncertainty, core quality uncertainty, difficulty adjudging reuse, and uncertainty in demand for remanufactured products.

Customers need track and trace capabilities and condition assessment during the usage phase.

Industrial product owners and fleet operators currently purchasing remanufactured products or components for use in their operations and contemplating what to do with their aging products.

Product customers, who use and lease/rent the product to others, face several challenges throughout the product’s lifecycle. A lack of trust in refurbished (RE*) products due to concerns about quality, limited information, and availability compared to new products are prominent barriers facing product customers.

Core brokers play a crucial role in the reverse logistics process by facilitating the return of used products to complete the recycling loop.

Companies specializing in the procurement and resale of used products or components for remanufacturing.

Core brokers are responsible for gathering used product cores from customers and supplying them to RE* providers. Core brokers face challenges such as inaccurate demand forecasts, difficulty in obtaining an adequate supply of cores, and frequent inventory imbalances of overstocking or understocking.

A trusted platform

Hitachi Encore

Hitachi Encore is a trusted platform and AI/analytics solution for stakeholders in the remanufacturing ecosystem.

The trusted platform:

Provides a single source of truth for all the value-chain participants throughout a product’s lifecycle
Enables secure sharing of data between participants and automation of transactions, which reduces friction in transactions
Built on the principles of big data and addresses the heterogeneity, variety, velocity, volume, and veracity of data

An AI/analytics solution

Hitachi Encore

Hitachi Encore is also an AI/Analytics solution:

Analyzes unified view of the data provided by the trusted platform
Utilizes advanced machine learning and deep learning methods
Provides insights and decision support to the participants in the value-chain

Let's Get Started

Discover the possibilities of a circular economy with a strategic partner that possesses in-depth knowledge and extensive experience in remanufacturing and digital technologies to effectively address complex challenges. We foster a strong partner ecosystem and deliver comprehensive solutions tailored to your specific needs.

* Required Field

Circular Economy
Asset Remanufacturing

Repair. Refurbish. Remanufacture. Reuse. Recycle.

Repair. Refurbish. Remanufacture. Reuse. Recycle.