INTEGRATION OF REVERSE LOGISTICS WITH IN NEW PRODUCT DESIGN: THE CASES STUDY IN CHINESE ELECTRIC AND ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT (EEE) INDUSTRY

ABSTRUCT There are growing concerns on the impact of waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) on the natural environment in recent years. Many governments are looking for an efficient and effective way to minimise the impact of WEEE on environment. Meanwhile, they are starting to require corporations especially EEE manufacturers to take more responsibilities on take-back, disassembly, remanufacturing, reuse and recycle the end-of-life product in a rational manner. Many studies have also focused on the logicality of reverse logistics and some models have been developed for the design of optimum reverse logistics system with low operation costs. However, few studies based on the integration of reverse logistics or stage of reverse logistics into early product design phase to ameliorate its serviceability, disassemblability, remanufacturability, reusability, recycalbility to accelerate its recycle and treatment process and further reduce the costs. In this paper, the fundamental motivators for corporations to implement reverse logistics have been revealed from legislations, customers, competition and ISO 14000 aspects, respectively. After that, we focus on new product design models and tools to concentrate on different stages of reverse logistics. The current circumstances of WEEE in China then have been evaluated and analyzed to identify the challenging tasks for China government and Chinese corporations to sort out. Two domestic appliances manufacturing corporations based in China have been selected to estimate their consciousness on the importance of recycling and treatment of end-of-life products and the effectiveness of their current systems. Tacking account of situation in China, it is very complex and costly for corporations to afford an appropriate recycle system even though for those leading manufacturers in industry