Addressing challenges of the remanufacturing process with the application of lean practices

The success of the remanufacturing process, currently rated as one of the most promising product recovery options, is influenced by a number of inherent challenges, somewhat different to those found in conventional manufacturing. The combination of remanufacturing with lean manufacturing principles appears to offer a plausible methodology for increasing process efficiencies but there are only limited reports of investigations into how lean is best implemented within this type of industry. This paper adresses the gap in the literature by presenting multiple case studies to examine how lean methodologies have been applied in practice to the organizational and technical challenges inherent to remanufacturing firms