Re-engineering of Rotary Draw Bending Machines: A Survey of Manufacturers and Users

摘要

Natural resources limitation and new legislative rules for waste reduction prompt the manufacturers of machine tools to be responsible for taking back their obsolete machines of high value-added, and use sustainable disposal methods such as machine retrofitting, rebuilding, or remanufacturing. Re-engineering of machine tools, concerning design development and failure analysis, is a concept enables and facilitates the implementation of the sustainable disposal methods. This paper aims to identify the re-engineering motivations, barriers, and required design modifications. As stated in a survey conducted among users and manufacturers of rotary draw bending machines, as a case study, economic benefits, use of the same tooling, environmental protection are the primary motivations, while spare parts unavailability, old parts wear and damage, and the high price of replacement parts are the most serious challenges make these machines more difficult to reuse. Furthermore, the required design modifications for designing reusable machines were highlighted in this paper. Additionally, measures for improving the accuracy, capacity, and performance of the studied machine are evaluated according to the survey results, and consequently, an investigation approach for mechanical failure analysis was created. In conclusion, it is observed that the results of the studied case confirmed the survey findings.