39 Recovery Analysis of Domestic Electric Storage Water Heaters
591
development. There are regulations for the treatment of used tires as well as nonreturnable packaging. However, there is currently no specific regulation for WEEE,
which usually ends up in public landfills. A bill has been proposed in the Uruguayan
Parliament (Proposal of law for the integral management of waste (in spanish). Available at: https://www.impo.com.uy/bases/leyes/19829-2019 [Accessed 30 Aug 2019])
that encourages the proper management of certain types of waste, among them the
so-called special waste that includes WEEE. It is important to note that the bill
also establishes an extended responsibility to manufacturers, who must take over the
management of the waste caused by their products.
Home appliances are rich in valuable materials that can be extracted if the product
has good engineering. This has caught the attention of manufacturers, who see an
economic opportunity in the recovery of used products in addition to the environment
benefit involved (Li et al. 2018). As far as we know, the recovery of DESWH has not
been considered in the literature on production systems with recovery options, despite
the recovery potential of the product as we will see later in this paper. Recovery is
also beneficial for customers, as they can obtain a recovered unit at a lower price and
that looks as-good-as new. In addition to failures in the DESWH, there can be other
motives for replace his used DESWH. For example, the capacity of the storage tank
is no longer adapted to their needs or because the energy efficiency has decreased
significantly.
In this paper, we present an analysis of the recovery options for used DESWHs.
The analysis is based on a research conducted for Rivomark (https://rivomark.com),
a DESWH manufacturer from Uruguay established in 1950. The main contributions
of this paper are as follows. We show the recoverability of DESWH based on an
analysis of the characteristics of the product and its main components. We consider
functional as well as safety requirements of the product. As a result, we suggest
an inspection guide for determining the quality level and the proper recovery route
for a used DESWH. In addition, we provide certain design suggestions in order to
improve the remanufacturing process of a used DESWH. Finally, we analyse the
impact of the recovery options of DESWH by means of a mathematical formulation
and a numerical experimentation of a hybrid production-remanufacturing system that
involves inspection of heterogenous returns, multiple items and capacity constraints.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 39.2 describes the
methodology for the research conducted and presented in this paper. Section 39.3
presents the recovery analysis carried out for used DESWH, including the inspection guide suggested with the details of the operations needed and the design
suggestions for the product. In Sect. 39.4 we present the study of the hybrid
production-remanufacturing system for evaluating the impact of the recovery options.
Section 39.5 presents the discussion of certain aspects for driving remanufacturing
of DESWH and Sect. 39.6 finishes the paper with the conclusions and guidelines for
future research.
591
development. There are regulations for the treatment of used tires as well as nonreturnable packaging. However, there is currently no specific regulation for WEEE,
which usually ends up in public landfills. A bill has been proposed in the Uruguayan
Parliament (Proposal of law for the integral management of waste (in spanish). Available at: https://www.impo.com.uy/bases/leyes/19829-2019 [Accessed 30 Aug 2019])
that encourages the proper management of certain types of waste, among them the
so-called special waste that includes WEEE. It is important to note that the bill
also establishes an extended responsibility to manufacturers, who must take over the
management of the waste caused by their products.
Home appliances are rich in valuable materials that can be extracted if the product
has good engineering. This has caught the attention of manufacturers, who see an
economic opportunity in the recovery of used products in addition to the environment
benefit involved (Li et al. 2018). As far as we know, the recovery of DESWH has not
been considered in the literature on production systems with recovery options, despite
the recovery potential of the product as we will see later in this paper. Recovery is
also beneficial for customers, as they can obtain a recovered unit at a lower price and
that looks as-good-as new. In addition to failures in the DESWH, there can be other
motives for replace his used DESWH. For example, the capacity of the storage tank
is no longer adapted to their needs or because the energy efficiency has decreased
significantly.
In this paper, we present an analysis of the recovery options for used DESWHs.
The analysis is based on a research conducted for Rivomark (https://rivomark.com),
a DESWH manufacturer from Uruguay established in 1950. The main contributions
of this paper are as follows. We show the recoverability of DESWH based on an
analysis of the characteristics of the product and its main components. We consider
functional as well as safety requirements of the product. As a result, we suggest
an inspection guide for determining the quality level and the proper recovery route
for a used DESWH. In addition, we provide certain design suggestions in order to
improve the remanufacturing process of a used DESWH. Finally, we analyse the
impact of the recovery options of DESWH by means of a mathematical formulation
and a numerical experimentation of a hybrid production-remanufacturing system that
involves inspection of heterogenous returns, multiple items and capacity constraints.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 39.2 describes the
methodology for the research conducted and presented in this paper. Section 39.3
presents the recovery analysis carried out for used DESWH, including the inspection guide suggested with the details of the operations needed and the design
suggestions for the product. In Sect. 39.4 we present the study of the hybrid
production-remanufacturing system for evaluating the impact of the recovery options.
Section 39.5 presents the discussion of certain aspects for driving remanufacturing
of DESWH and Sect. 39.6 finishes the paper with the conclusions and guidelines for
future research.