TRIZ inspired design guidelines for remanufacturing using additive manufacturing

Remanufacturing is the process of turning used products into new ones in terms of quality, functionality, and aesthetics with relatively lower product price. To make the process of remanufacturing easier, certain changes may be required in the design of a remanufactured product. The advent of additive manufacturing has opened new opportunities for the design for remanufacturing with an increase in the feasibility of various product design options for remanufacturing. Although there are design guidelines scattered across literature, a set of design rules or guidelines that facilitate remanufacturing using additive manufacturing is not clearly provided in the extant literature. To fill this void, this research focuses on building a set of design guidelines based on a TRIZ matrix to solve conflicting problems or issues on design for remanufacturing. The proposed TRIZ matrix facilitates necessary design guidelines for remanufacturing using additive manufacturing. A case study is provided to elaborate on the application of the design guidelines derived from the proposed methodology. This study develops a user-friendly TRIZ tool which will help identify all the parameters that need to be considered for remanufacturing and provides feasible solutions to successfully remanufacture a product. This tool will be of great use to industries and designers trying to design parts for remanufacturing