As Good as New: Product Design and Remanufacture

As Good as New: Product Design and Remanufacture

Casper Gray & Damien Jones, Directors, Wax RDC
David Parker, Head of Remanufacturing, Centre for Remanufacturing & Reuse
2nd October 09
12.00 - 2.00
University for the Creative Arts
Farnham
UK

Organised by: SMILE @ The Centre for Sustainable Design

FREE workshop

Abstract

Increasingly stringent Extended Producer Responsibility legislation is making the consideration of End-of-Life (EoL) treatment a
priority for designers, manufacturers, recyclers and governments across the globe. Common EoL treatments such as the shredding
of products for recycling can result in low value recyclate streams and does not extract the maximum value from EoL products.

Remanufacture is an exciting strategy for the profitable and environmentally sensitive treatment of EoL products. A remanufacturing system collects EoL products, returns them to their original condition then retails them at an as-new price. Remanufacture results in the extension of a product’s life and promotes the re-use of components and materials. It is a means of generating profits, preventing waste and conserving valuable natural resources.

Wax is a design consultancy with experience in developing products and systems optimised for remanufacture. Wax uses their unique D4Reman process to enable organisations to understand and implement remanufacturing systems, focused on maximising long-term Return-on-Investment whilst making significant environmental improvements.

This talk will explain Remanufacture and how powerful design strategies such as Design for Remanufacture and Design for Disassembly can be used to facilitate its implementation.

Design for remanucature logo

Biographies

Casper Gray (Director)

Casper has developed unique, practical skills in commercial eco-design through working on projects with clients including CfSD
(The Centre for Sustainable Design), Clarks, UCA (University for the Creative Arts) and Active Disassembly Research Ltd.
These skills include setting up eco-design projects, design for remanufacture, stakeholder engagement, brainstorming, financial assessment (Return on Investment), LCT (Lifecycle Thinking) and streamlined LCA (Lifecycle Assessment). He is experienced at presenting eco-design implementation at national and international conferences, is an Envirowise eco-design advisor and a member of the Brazilian Design & Sustainability Research Centre’s International Scientific Committee. Casper has written on areas of sustainable design for journals and books both individually and collaboratively with authors including Martin Charter and Jason DePerro.
Previous to setting up Wax, Casper worked with CfSD as an eco-design researcher and with Lightweight Medical, Giraffe Innovation and Sawaya & Moroni (Milan) as a Design Associate.

Damien Jones (Director)

Damien Jones is experienced in project management and client liaison with SMEs and on behalf of large EU-funded projects such as the ReFLATED LCD recycling project. He also has experience in sustainable technology and materials research and has produced engaging presentations to demonstrate project findings for clients such as Last shoes. Prior to setting up Wax, Damien worked with Exoteq for two years to design and develop the Meos Mobile Broadband handset and user interface. Damien continues to work closely with Exoteq and has developed websites, packaging and marketing material for them. Damien teaches eco-design, CAD and rapid prototyping at UCA and Kingston University. Before entering the product design sector, Damien trained and worked as mechanical engineer and he applies this technical background to his industrial design work at Wax.

Abstract

The drive for sustainability in business is revealing new challenges both for designers and the scope of design itself. It is increasingly apparent that business model innovation – more often used to bundle new marketing and finance initiatives – can be harnessed beneficially for sustainable environmental and social benefits. This talk will illustrate how one model of sustainable business practice, based on remanufacture and reuse, demands that the concept of design needs extending to embrace business models, business operations and product/service design in unison, correspondingly addressing the concerns of three widely differing target audiences.

Biography

David Parker, MBA, MSc, MIChemE, CEnv, FRSA
Head of Remanufacturing, Centre for Remanufacturing & Reuse

Finn Jackson

After reading chemical engineering at Cambridge, David worked for ICI and DuPont in a number of roles. Initially he worked for the Group Energy Integration team, moved through operations support, R&D, new low energy polyester plant design, engineering and commissioning; and finally techno-commercial assessment of new technology options for plant upgrade on behalf of the global Polyester board. He joined resource management consultancy, Oakdene Hollins in 2001. Since then he has been involved in diverse activities related to waste and resources working with DTI, Defra and WRAP. A running theme has been remanufacturing which was his first project at OHL, and this has escalated into running the Defra BREW-funded Centre for Remanufacturing & Reuse.



David Parker
Head of Remanufacturing

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