Opportunities for remanufactured electronic products from developing countries : hypotheses to characterise the perspectives of a global remanufacturing industry

摘要

Global legislative and market pressures areincreasingly enforcing the concept of product life cycle management (LCM), or product stewardship, particularly inthe electronics sector. Thereby, from an environmental perspective, end-of-life regulations and obligations require thetechnology managers of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) in developed countries to consider remanufacturing and reuse as an attractive economic alternative to expensiverecycling and the final disposal of electronic products.Furthermore, developing countries offer an expanding market for affordable quality spare parts, especially for the repair ofcellular phones and household appliances. These dissimilar markets could be complementary from the perspective of the remanufacturing sector. Additional requirements of this relatively informal sector in developing countries must beconsidered, specifically product cleaning processes and test routines that may necessitate the transfer of technologies. Also,training and formalisation are needed to deliver quality services in the repair sector of developing countries. Potential market niches may also exist for inexpensive products from a formalised remanufacturing industry. Therefore, by moving from international isolation to global integration, remanufacturing and repair will profit from networking and synergy efforts in four arenas of the electronic product life cycle chain: market participants, products and applications, neighbouring technologies, and international regions.