Final Report Summary - RESCOM (Resource Conservative Manufacturing- transforming waste into high value resource through closed-loop product systems)
Executive Summary:
A circular economy is one that is restorative and regenerative by design, and aims to keep products, components, and materials at their highest value at all times. It is a systemic approach to the economy designed to benefit businesses, society, and the environment. Companies are increasingly tapping into its opportunities by designing business models that generate value from reuse, remanufacturing, leasing, and design for multiple lifecycles. However, there are very few tools to support manufacturers in adopting such a systemic approach. ResCoM project, which stands for Resource Conservative Manufacturing, has developed a methodology and the first practical tools of their kind to help fill this gap. The ResCoM outcomes help designers and manufacturers understand how collection, remanufacturing and reuse of products can lead to more profitable, resource-efficient and resilient business practices compared to the current linear manufacturing system. Together they support manufacturers in realising the potential in developing products that fit a circular economy. By assessing the economic and environmental performance of circular economy business models, and integrating product design considerations, the tools enable manufacturers to move beyond idea generation and into implementation. The methodology and tools are complemented by a series of industrial case studies that have demonstrated its application across various industries. Four original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) - Bugaboo, Gorenje, Loewe and tedrive - used the ResCoM methodology and tools to implement closed-loop product systems in their industries. Lessons learned from these pilots also fed into the creation of guidelines to support other companies in implementing the ResCoM methodology.
Project Context and Objectives:
Closed-loop manufacturing systems (also referred in this document as circular economy systems) are viewed as a solution to the problem of resource scarcity. Nevertheless, despite a large amount of research in this area, there is no common understanding of the key enablers, which in turn hinders their successful adoption by business (OEMs) and society (consumers) in practice.
The main objective of the ResCoM project is to develop an innovative and practical framework, supported by a lifecycle management software platform for the industrial implementation of closed-loop manufacturing systems.
Today, the most common strategy for closing the loop is the recycling of manufactured products for material recovery. Recycling in this context is well established in specific manufacturing sectors such as consumer electronics, textiles, paper or metals. It has a clear environmental impact as it reduces landfills and provides a source of valuable raw materials, acquired with minimised environmental burden. However, material losses are significant even at high recycling rates (for instance, recycling the drinks packaging aluminium results in 15-20 % loss of material as dross) and therefore, recycling cannot be the only solution. In addition it does not address fully the problem of resource conservation since a) significant efforts and enormous amount of energy are required in sorting, separating, re-melting and reprocessing the recycled materials and b) up to 85% of the manufacturing value of a product is associated with labour, energy and equipment (and not raw materials), which is lost as recycling shreds the product in an attempt to recover only the material value.
ResCoM aims to leverage the potential of converting the tangible and intangible waste into a highly valuable resource, focusing on retaining EOL products or components and putting them back into the value chain through remanufacturing or reuse (i.e. multiple lifecycles).
The economic, environmental and strategic benefits of closed-loop product systems are well researched and documented such as the study published by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in 2012 on the economic rationale of circular economy shows an estimated net material cost saving of more than USD 600 billion p.a. by 2025, driven by closed-loop product manufacturing systems. Despite these tremendous economic and environmental advantages closed-loop manufacturing struggles to become a mainstream practice. Research shows that the closed-loop manufacturing is still in its infancy, fragmented and driven primarily by third-party small or medium sized remanufacturers. In order to elevate its status to a mainstream business, it is critical to raise the interest, involvement and support of the OEMs, and to integrate reuse and remanufacturing strategies into the mainstream business for closing the product loop eventually.
In line with “cradle to cradle” thinking, ResCoM’s approach aims to transform the tangible and intangible product waste into valuable resources, supported by the ResCoM “pillars” in a systemic perspective.
• Design: design methodologies for multiple lifecycles
• Supply chains: integrated forward and reverse supply chain solutions that can handle the dynamics of multiple lifecycles
• Business models: innovative service models supporting product returns to OEMs
• Technology: collaborative PLM software platform supporting multiple lifecycles and supplemented by material databases, remanufacturing technologies and best practices disseminated to OEMs
It is important to emphasize that the ResCoM approach is not limited to encouraging product reuse and remanufacturing. The ResCoM framework is meant to evaluate all possible forms of closing the loop including product level recycling, component level recycling and material level recycling. However, in the ResCoM concept, material recycling is the least efficient alternative from the perspective of environmental performance and is only used when the other two alternatives are not feasible.
Project Results:
3. Main S & T results/foregrounds
In addition to all the deliverables, ResCoM has developed a wide range of methods and tools. This section summarises the key outcomes of ResCoM which include different methods to facilitate transition to circular systems together with product design, analysis, analytic, and the Product Lifecycle Management tools.
3.1 Guidelines for generic implementation of the ResCoM framework
Companies that are interested in implementing closed loop product systems can find the transition phase overwhelming and complex. For different companies the transition paths can be different and often the reference point (where to start and what to consider at the starting of the transition) is not easy to know. To support companies in transition, the research work in WP2 has led to the guidelines for generic implementation of the ResCoM framework. It defines the ResCoM requirements for generic use, applicable to any company that wants to transit from linear to closed loop product systems and these requirements are classified according to the ResCoM pillars, i.e. business model, product design, supply chain and information and communication technology (ICT). The guidelines and the requirements are the results of the lessons learned through ResCoM project, analysis of ResCoM case companies’ current status and review of relevant industrial examples as well as literature. The outcomes for this work have been documented in a report (D2.4) and made public through ResCoM website. This report helps companies to get an understanding of which transition paths are appropriate for them and which generic requirements they need to fulfil to follow the chosen path.
3.2 Guidelines for generic ResCoM Design Methodology for Multiple Lifecycle Products
By combining the lessons learned from the four ResCoM cases and studying the best practices, a generic methodology was developed for other companies that want to engage in the development of multiple-lifecycle products. The work has been conducted as part WP 3 and a report (D3.4) has been made public which describes a stepwise approach for developing such products. The approach includes a suite of design tools as well as a practical case study example to illustrate the implementation in practice. This work has also led to six product design tools described below.
3.3 Circular Pathfinder
The Circular Pathfinder is a starting tool for companies interested in circular economy thinking, allowing them to explore and identify the most suitable circular pathways for their products, by answering just a few questions. Informed by the best-practices of other companies, the Circular Pathfinder guides the user towards circular pathways that have potential in their specific case. It explains why certain pathways, such as product remanufacturing, life extension, or recycling are of interest, with examples from companies that have already applied them, and suggests further steps to take. Within the ResCoM cases, this tool helps to select the product design and analytic tools that are relevant to a specific case.
3.4 Multiple Lifecycle Product Design
Modular design is a key enabler of circular business models that rely on exchange of components between products, product generations and product families. The tool uses the existing Modular Function Deployment (MFD) method and extends it for multiple lifecycles, allowing companies to plan their product modules along multiple use-cycles and lifecycles. The tool helps to determine the module interfaces and how they are to be standardised to support multiple lifecycle value propositions.
3.5 Part Planning
When designing for long product lifetimes and good reparability, the availability of spare parts is a key issue to address within a Circular Business model. A solution for offering spare parts in a way that is economically viable is to design for spare part compatibility across product generations.
Strategic planning of carry-over parts should happen very early in the design process. The Part Planning tool is geared towards this design stage, providing designers a fast and simple tool for part planning. Via an interdisciplinary workshop session, the tool supports designers to analyse and plan for carry-over parts across multiple product use-cycles
3.6 Reman Design Checklist
Many durable products are already being remanufactured, as it allows companies to use their high-quality parts again and offer customers products that perform as well as the originals. With Design for Remanufacturing, designers already take future remanufacturing into account when designing the product.
The Reman Design Checklist helps product engineers explicitly consider the remanufacturability of a product design by analysing and scoring the remanufacturability of its components: information that allows the team to track progress between design iterations. The output of the tool includes an evaluation of product components and recommendations for further improvements.
3.7 Upgrade Forecast
Many products, such as televisions and mobile phones, are subject to rapid technological improvements. As a consequence they are frequently replaced before they break down in favour of a new product with new capabilities. For this type of product, a business model can aim to extend the life of a product that has been designed to be upgraded. By allowing new features to be added to the product, its useful lifetime can be prolonged and it can offer better value for money to customers
The Upgrade Forecast tool is designed to help OEMs determine what upgrade specifications to include in product design. The tool facilitates interdisciplinary teams involved in product development to visualise future trends, demands and disturbances, to select the product features that will require upgrading, and to determine the specifications of these future upgrades.
3.8 Circularity Calculator
The purpose of the Circularity Calculator is to help designers that work in the fuzzy front end of product development to obtain a ‘circularity instinct’: an understanding of how strategic design decisions influence the degree of circularity of resource flows and potential value capture within the product-service-system.
The Circularity Calculator tool displays the potential mass and value flows of a product, based on whether the different parts are either reused, remanufactured and/or recycled. With this tool designers can model different conceptual design solutions and business models to explore and compare design scenarios and see their impact on performance indices such as overall circularity, recycling rate and value recovery potential. Both high level and more detailed analyses are possible to help generate ideas and recommendations and provide timely results.
3.9 Models of closed loop product systems
The work in WP 4 has led to 4 models of closed loop product systems developed for 4 OEMs. The models are developed using multimethod simulation approach that includes system dynamics and agent based modelling approach. These models are made available to OEMs which they can use to assess the economic and environmental performance of various scenarios of closed loop products systems. This work has also led to development of analytical and multimethod tools described below. The methodological approaches used to develop the analytical and multimethod simulation tools have been published in the scientific journals by KTH and INSEAD.
This work has been a major input for the ResCoM OEMs to design and evaluate the virtual models of the market pilots.
3.10 Analytical Tool
The analytical tool compares the performance of the linear conventional business with that of potential closed-loop scenarios.
The analytical tools calculate the performance based on specific scenarios for the business model, supply chain and design. For each scenario, a number of parameters related to cost (production costs, forward and reverse logistics costs, costs of the recovery process, management costs, and end-of-life costs) can be entered to calculate the performance of the system. Critical factors, for example the remanufacturing success rate, return rate, lease conditions, and lifespan of products can be modified to test different cases. Necessary investments costs for design, reverse engineering, or remanufacturing facilities can also be included where needed. CO2 calculations are added to the tool to give insights into the environmental performance.
The tool will allow to gauge potential profitability and environmental impact of more circular system alternatives, and to compare those to the current linear systems. Sensitivity analysis helps the OEMs understand the boundaries of profitable closed-loop systems and what is needed to make the systems profitable in the future. With only a few input variables, the tool provides quick answers and directions for further in-depth evaluations of potential closed-loop business models. Companies with similar structure as the OEMs in ResCoM can easily use the tool to obtain insightful preliminary analyses and to better understand what elements may currently block successful transition to more circular systems.
3.11 Multimethod Simulation Tool
The tool has been developed using system dynamics (SD) and agent based (AB) modelling techniques to assess economic and environmental performance of circular product systems from a system perspective. More than 120 variables are considered simultaneously in order to describe a typical circular product system, which deals with changes and effects of business models, product design and supply chain, addressing challenges including:
- Customer acceptance and expected demand of new business models
- Consideration and effects of product design alternatives
- Design of supply chain to respond to the needs of the new business models
The integration of the developed sub-models for business models, product design and supply chains give a comprehensive overall picture in order to understand the dynamics of circular product systems while making use of today’s available computing-power.
3.12 The ResCoM platform and tools
The ResCoM platform is a web based application which brings together software applications and descriptive (i.e. non-software) tools and methods in one place to support decision-making and implementation of closed-loop product systems. The platform is public and accessible at, http://www.rescoms.eu/platform-and-tools. The free trial version of all methodologies and tools are available through creating a user credential. The methodologies and tools in the platform are demonstrated using a neutral example, i.e. a ‘bicycle case’ that is not related to the ResCoM cases.
Furthermore, all virtual models of the 4 ResCoM cases are accessible by the consortium members. This layer of the platform demonstrates methodologies and tools that are applied to ResCoM cases.
3.13 Enhanced Eco Audit Tool: GRANTA MI:BoM Analyzer
MI:BoM Analyzer enables users to assess environmental, regulatory, and supply chain risks, and to support increased resource efficiency for products. Users import and edit a bill of materials (BoM) and instantly run reports that apply an extensive database of materials, process, and environmental data to assess product risk and guide design decisions. This includes newly-enhanced Eco Audit reports, which can assess environmental impacts and cost across multiple use cycles, providing detailed information on reverse logistics and estimating the break-even point for closed loop remanufacturing against linear production in terms of both environmental impacts and lifecycle cost.
3.14 Product Multiple Lifecycle Management Tool
The PMLM tool is an enhanced PLM tool supporting the closed loop, multi life cycle product and supply chain in an integrated and traceable way. The information managed includes production definition (multiple lifecycles), product design (including material selection), usage and maintenance definition, business model definition and supply chain definition. From the well-structured product data, users can check:
- Processes linked to remanufacturing and closed loop supply chains
- Product changes traced during the multiple lifecycles
- Product evolution throughout the multiple lifecycles
The tracing system enables OEMs seeking to maximize the return from product by going beyond the initial product sales and providing customers with value-added service throughout the product lifecycle.
3.15 Virtual model of market pilots
The work in WP 6 has led to 4 demo of virtual model of market pilots for 4 ResCoM cases. Each company has defined several scenarios of circular systems that they are interested to explore, which have been modelled virtually using the methods and tools developed (and described above) in ResCoM. These virtual model of market pilots are accessible by all consortium partners through the ResCoM website.
3.16 A generic virtual model of a market pilot
A similar generic demo of virtual model of a market pilot has also been developed and made available for public through the ResCoM website. For this demo a neutral example, i.e. bicycle has been used. This demo contains all the features of the ResCoM OEM’s virtual model of market pilots. Functionality of all the tools has been demonstrated through this virtual model as well.
3.17 A generic guideline for companywide implementation of the ResCoM platform
‘A generic guideline for companywide implementation of the ResCoM platform’ is a descriptive document that has been made public. In this document the four OEMs that participated in the ResCoM project - Bugaboo, Gorenje, Loewe, and tedrive - share their practical experiences and best practices in developing circular business models. This also provides an overview of how to get started, design, pilot, and scale a circular development project, followed by a concise explanation of their best practices for each of these phases.
This stepwise guideline will help companies to get started with the transition from a linear to a circular system.
3.18 Proposal for standardization
The aim of the ‘proposal for standardization’ is to introduce the standardization community the need for standardization of the information flows in the circular economy in general and for Resource Conservative Manufacturing especially. This has been done by defining the usage of existing international information standards in the ResCoM project and highlighting the need where the standards should be improved to take the ResCoM’s closed loop product systems into account.
The digitalization movement supported by Internet of Things, Cloud, and Big Data etc. are enablers for effective circular economy. In common for these new technologies is the need to understand the communicated data, what it represents and what context it is related to. In ResCoM a circular economy view of the information managed in the lifecycle of a product and its supporting system. The view is based on the ISO 10303-239 Product Life Cycle Support which is an information model, defining the information managed in a linear Product Life Cycle. In ResCoM view of the standard model specializations are defined to support the circularity nature of the product lifecycle.
This proposal is a public document made available through the ResCoM website.
3.19 Policy Brief
The policy brief summarizes industry-specific challenges based on the ResCoM case studies and provides policy recommendations on how natural resources and waste can be reduced based on particular closed-loop scenarios.
During the course of collecting insights for a policy brief the ResCoM consortium and particularly the industrial partners (OEMs) have been addressed. Based on a scenario of a profitable and environmental friendly closed-loop system the ResCoM OEMs have named relevant directives that may hinder practices of reuse/remanufacturing/recycling or the use of parts or components which have been reused/remanufactured/recycled.
This policy brief is a public document made available through the ResCoM website.
Potential Impact:
4. Potential impact
ResCoM has proposed and taken a bottom-up approach to support industries to transit from linear to closed loop systems. The motivation to choose the bottom-up approach is inherent to the fact that if the manufacturing companies get engaged and get convinced that this is the way forward, the transition will be faster. Therefore, the aim has been to create a significant impact in the manufacturing sectors. The four case studies have revealed lot of challenges and barriers that need to be addressed in order to push the bottom-up approach. This approach has also helped in identifying some issues related to the top-down approach that need to be addressed.
Furthermore, the ResCoM developments are the direct reflection of the industrial needs and all developments as well as outcomes of the case studies are made publicly available. This has attracted a lot of industrial actors and individuals, and this community is continuous growing. The ResCoM consortium members are quite often being contacted by people who want to know more about the project and the developments.
In addition, the project has impact on several aspects as described below.
4.1 Circular economy
A circular economy is one that is restorative and regenerative by design, and aims to keep products, components and materials at their highest utility and value at all times. It distinguishes between technical and biological cycles. The ResCoM framework addresses the problem of structural waste by evaluating possible forms of closing the loop, including design for reuse, redistribution, remanufacturing, refurbishment and recycling. Waste is turned into a valuable resource, improving resource efficiency by retaining products or components after use and putting them back into the value chain.
4.2 Best practices
ResCoM developed four pilots with OEMs in different industries (automobile, white goods, consumer electronics and consumer products). Lessons learned from the pilots provided generic guidelines for adapting the ResCoM framework to individual companies and facilitating market uptake. These examples are being demonstrated in many occasions by ResCoM partners creating a momentum for industries to implement closed loop approach. To give an example, as an effect of this project Goernej and Bosch, the two largest companies in Europe have teamed up to take the ideas further with the support from H2020 funding.
4.3 Economic and environmental impact
ResCoM can help companies to boost their competitiveness. Manufacturers adopting the ResCoM framework can increase resource efficiency and reduce pressure against resource shortage and scarcity. They will be able to significantly reduce raw material costs, distributing them over several usecycles of their products and creating a strategic cost advantage. Specifically, EU-based companies can deter the entry of low cost (non EU-based) competitors by introducing lower cost remanufactured products. Adopting the ResCoM framework will help companies adjust to market changes more quickly than in linear models.
Implementing changes based on the ResCoM framework is likely to have significant impacts on waste reduction, energy reduction and resource conservation: For example, in comparison to manufacturing from new, only 10 to 15% of virgin material is required in remanufacturing, and 85% of energy can be saved. Hence, an uptake of remanufacturing has potential to reduce the degradation of ecosystems on a similar scale.
The level of economic and environmental impact that can be achieved in a specific case is related to how far a company goes with the implementation of the ResCoM approach and how fast a company will adapt their existing linear systems to a complete closed loop system. The virtual model of a market pilots developed in ResCoM have shown positive results even with minor changes (such as only by changing product design to life extension or business models to leasing or introducing remanufacturing) in the OEMs’ current systems. For instance, one of the closed loop scenarios (i.e. two times remanufacturing of washing machines) of Gorenje that has been analysed using the Enhanced Eco Audit Tool has shown a reduction of ca. 50% of CO2 emissions and a decrease of the energy usage of ca. 47% when. The same scenario has shown ca. 15% cost reduction when it was analysed using the multimethod simulation tool. If changes in business models, supply chain, product design and technological infrastructures are done simultaneous as suggested in the ResCoM approach the impact will be significant.
More of such details of economic and environmental impact are presented in D 6.2-D6.5.
4.4 Job creation
New reverse logistics and remanufacturing activities that will be introduced by companies implementing the ResCoM framework will have higher potential of creating new jobs in the supply chain and manufacturing.
4.5 Scientific community
ResCoM has created a set of tools and models for researchers working in the area of closed-loop product systems. The learnings and data from the industrial pilots were used as a knowledge base to derive guidelines for the generic framework. Furthermore, the ResCoM software platform to support decision making can also be used by scientists, designers and operational managers to research, plan and implement closed-loop product systems.
Through the website, collaborative platform, scientific publications and other dissemination activities ResCoM has engaged a large scientific community and the community is growing continuously. In less than two months after the launch of ResCoM methodologies and tools, the platform has attracted more than 600 visitors and about 150 users. The ResCoM peer reviewed scientific publications collectively have been cited more than 550 times.
4.6 European Commission initiatives and standards
Various European initiatives address areas related to ResCoM. The ResCoM project seeks opportunities to leverage and support these initiatives. The outcome of the ResCoM project will also help inform policy making via the European Resource Efficiency Programme and provide input to standardisation committees at European and other levels.
ResCoM has issued a policy brief and delivered the input to standardization committees (ISO 10303-239 and ISO/WD 8887-1). The plan is to initiate and get involved in creating a standard on circular economy together with NIST.
In addition to the impact above:
• R&D partners, KTH and TUD are employing more researchers to work dedicatedly on the ideas of closed-loop manufacturing and circular economy
• KTH has also established its Circular Economy Initiative with a base funding of more than one million Euros, dedicated to research and education on the topic.
• KTH partly inspired by ResCoM has also hired for two new faculty positions in the area of circular economy at the ITM school level where different departments are collaborating to support the CE initiative. Several new faculty positions have been announced in December, 2017 and January, 2018.
• At KTH a PhD course in circular economy has stared in January, 2018 with 30 participants.
• Few of the ResCoM consortium partners teamed up with Gorenje and Bosch and received funding from H2020 to move forward with implementation of several of the ResCoM ideas and developments.
• TUD, partly inspired by ResCoM has established a professorship in Circular Product Design at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering and a full professor is now hired
• One spin-off, a consultancy (http://www.cirbes.se) in industrial implementation of CE solutions is already set-up by the research team of KTH
5. Dissemination activities
See section 5 of the attached report of the list of publications and dissemination activities.
6. Exploitation of results
The exploitation plan defines the strategy and guidelines for exploiting the scientific and technological developments that have resulted from the ResCoM project. This includes the future exploitation activities and any further expected results.
6.1 ResCoM platform and tools
The ResCoM collaborative software platform will be exploited as a mode to promote the systematic approach for implementing closed-loop systems. Through this interactive platform the user will experience how closed-loop systems can be designed, analysed and implemented from a product’s conceptual design phase to the management of its multiple lifecycles. The platform will also show the systemic dependencies among business models, product design, supply chains and information management aspects and the importance of considering these aspects simultaneously. While the users will experience both the integrated platform and the tools as stand-alone, feedback will be collected and will be used to improve the tools further. A fully functional platform will be made available for public trial and use for one to three years after the project end.
In the first year following the end of ResCoM, the platform will be hosted on the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) server and KTH with the support from EMF and all other development partners will make sure that the platform remains functional. In case of errors or such in operating the platform, KTH will coordinate with the respective tool owner to resolve errors and keep the platform running.
In the second year the platform will be transferred to KTH’s server and an evaluation of the platform usage will be carried out. Based on the evaluation and the interests of the tool owners at that point of time, further actions needed to maintain the platform will be decided. In the meantime, it has been agreed that the consortium will review and provide small updates every 6 months.
Currently there is no plan or consent among partners to exploit the entire ResCoM platform as a commercial product/platform. However, each partner and tool developer has their own and individual exploitation plans which are describe below.
6.2 Eurostep (Share-A-space)
The ResCoM collaborative software platform is built on Share-A-space, an IT tool of Eurostep for secure PLM collaboration that is developed further in ResCoM project to support closed loop multiple lifecycle applications. It provides two functions: product-life circular support configuration management (i.e. product multiple lifecycle management) and extended enterprise secure collaboration (i.e. tools integration, the tools including the decision-making tools used/developed by ResCoM researchers and other tools used by 4 OEMs). It manages all the product-related information from the early conceptual design phase to the end-of-life (EOL) of a product. The ResCoM data models are also developed as the basis of the ResCoM collaborative software platform development, including developing the solution for managing products with multiple lifecycles and developing the ResCoM Web API and mappers for integrating ResCoM tools to the platform. These models were validated using the platform and industrial test cases.
As the leader of WP5, Eurostep will organise event and webinars internally and externally for communicating the ResCoM results, and actively cooperate with the project manager and all partners to disseminate and commercialise the platform. Eurostep takes the following responsibilities:
1. Present and demonstrate the functions of the platform
2. Present the ResCoM standard data model
6.3 Granta Design (Web BOM Analyzer)
Granta Design developed within the ResCoM project, a custom report to analyse and compare products that can be used for multiple use cycles thanks to closed loop remanufacturing. The sustainability assessment results are based on Granta’s background IP implemented to take into account the more complex mass flow of a circular recovery of products and components. The customer report is to be considered as a prototype that takes part into the wider Granta’s software solution “Product Intelligence”(https://www.grantadesign.com/products/mi/pi.htm ) that will be promoted and tested with a series of commercial partners and customers. The solution, that can be considered as stand-alone product, will be also presented as part of the wider outcome of the ResCoM project set of tools.
6.4 IDEAL&CO (Circular Pathfinder, Circularity Calculator, Reman Design Checklist, Upgrade Forecast, Part Planning)
Together with TU Delft, IDEAL&CO has developed a stepwise approach to Circular product design that we intend to apply to future design projects with our clients. Furthermore, the five Circular Design tools that IDEAL&CO developed within ResCoM will be offered to OEM clients for implementing circular design in different ways;
1) Use the tools as within the ResCoM project, to provide workshops and longer-term guidance to companies. This includes the possible integration of the tools within PLM systems, which we will pursue in cooperation with Eurostep, and includes possible cooperation with members from the EMF-network that would benefit from the use of these tools.
2) Provide circular product design and consultancy services to companies, using the tools in IDEAL&CO’s own back catalogue.
3) Create customised tools for a specific company that has unique requirements towards implementation in their product development process.
4) Further develop the tools into commercial products that companies can engage with on their own. To this extend, the SME-partners of the ResCoM-project, including the ResCoM spin-off CirBES, plan to submit a Eureka proposal to support the commercial development of their ResCoM tools.
5) Furthermore, IDEAL&CO plans to contribute to research & implementation projects to further develop and implement circular design & supporting tools. IDEAL&CO is partner in a new consortium led by SUPSI-ISTePS, and including bicycle (re)manufacturer Roetz for a circular business implementation project that has applied for Horizon 2020 funding (for the H2020-IND-CE-2016-17 call - industry 2020 in the Circular Economy) in which the Circularity Calculator will be employed.
6) Finally, IDEAL&CO and TU Delft will explore the use of the ResCoM design tools in the design curriculum, in particular within circular design project assignments at the Industrial Design Engineering faculty of the TU Delft.
6.5 INSEAD (Analytical Tool)
The analytical tools are developed as stand-alone tool that can be used without the need for extensive training or instruction. Each tool starts with a one-page introduction that briefly explains the tool including what type of business model is assessed, the assumptions made in the model, what type of questions can be answered with the tool, and the limitations of the tool. It further provides instructions on how to use the tool, making use of colour coding to direct users to the right cells in the excel tool. An intuitive input, results, and sensitivity sheet gives the user the possibility to apply to the tool to their specific case and interpret the results. This is done to limit the need for external consultancy.
On the ResCoM platform, the tools will be explained and screenshots will be provided to give an impression of the working of the tools. Contact details will be provided in case any company would like to receive more information and decisions are made on a case-by-case basis. At the moment, discussions are underway with a large financial organization which might be willing to purchase the tools for using them when advising customers that are pursuing circular business models. IDEAL&CO also might partner with a consultant in the future to apply the tools to different companies.
The method behind the model and the knowledge developed during the creation of the tools and the testing of the tools with the ResCoM partners will be disseminated via academic journal papers and
conferences (see academic outcomes).
6.6 KTH (Multi-method Simulation)
The tools that KTH has developed will be commercially exploited through the spin-off Circular Business and Engineering Systems AB, CirBES AB (http://www.cirbes.se/) established by the core develop team at KTH. CirBES AB is a consulting firm aiming to support industries in implementing circular systems and carryout collaborative and/or independent research within circular manufacturing systems. The tools are already available for customers to use as part of the consulting services. Within 3-year time trial version of the tools will be made available for customers to purchase/subscribe before they decide to purchase the full package of consulting services.
6.7 Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Access to the ResCoM tools internally at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation will allow better understanding how these can support businesses decision making in the transition to a circular economy. A key exploitation activity for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation will be to share the outcomes and learnings from the ResCoM project, including the potential for the tools to assist the Ellen MacArthur Foundation network with decision making in circular economy business models. This will enable both the immediate Foundation network and more widely to a general business and academic audience to benefit from the key learnings of the ResCoM project, and to be introduced the final tools. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation will also continue to connect the
ResCoM network with relevant stakeholders that would be interested or could benefit from the use of the ResCoM tools.
6.8 Gorenje
As a continuation of the work in ResCoM Gorenje has initiated an implementation project, in which 300 washing machines will be installed in Austria, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Denmark. Pay-per-use will be adopted as the business model where each washing machine will be refurbished twice and will serve over 3 life cycles of 5 years. This will be done through a H2020 project that is planned to kick off in June 2018.
As a perpetration of this project, Gorenje is currently in the process of developing a set of prototype of WiFi enabled smart washing machines which are being tested for connectivity. This research and development work is part of a Eureka Eurostar research project, in which Gorenej is collaborating with KTH and two IT development companies. The project is aiming to bring forward a commercial IT-platform that will support the implementation of closed loop systems. This It-platform will establish the connection between the machines, users, Gorenje and service providers etc. and at the same time will be used for condition monitoring of the machines.
Gorenje also plans to push the ResCoM approach and thinking in other home appliances manufactured by them.
6.9 Bugaboo
Already within the timeframe of the ResCoM project, Bugaboo has implemented a leasing pilot. The pilot has provided a good knowledge base and revealed several practical challenges such as abusive use of strollers by consumers or profit margin shrinkage due to cost of credit check of potential leasers etc. In order to move forwards Bugaboo needs to overcome or address these challenges. Bugaboo has the plan to scale-up the leasing pilot, but currently Bugaboo is going through an organizational restructuring which may delay the planned exploitation activities. Bugaboo will also consider the opportunity for refurbishment of their strollers in the future, and expect their thinking and the ResCoM tools to be integrated into this process. Further projects will explore increasing the recycled content in Bugaboo products.
6.10 Loewe
Loewe plans to continue to exploit the ResCoM methodology and tools in their plans to create upgradable TVs. Loewe plans to develop modular TV which will enable both software and hardware updates in order to extend the life of the TVs. Loewe also plans to carry out a leasing pilot where instead of selling TVs they will lease home entertainment systems, informed by the ResCoM learnings.
6.11 Tedrive
Through ResCoM, tedrive has explored the possibility of applying different business models to increase their capacity of remanufacturing of steering systems, such as buying cores from the OMEs or the free market. Both models have revealed some challenges that Tedrive needs to deal with which will be their priority for the near future. Tedrive will also consider to implement better packaging for core collection in future, and expect their thinking and the ResCoM tools to be integrated into this process.
List of Websites:
www.rescoms.eu
Amir Rashid, PhD
Associate Professor
Head of division, Manufacturing and Metrology Systems
KTH, School of Industrial Engineering and Management
Department of Production Engineering
Brinellvägen 68, 100 44 Stockholm
Phone: +46 8 790 6373,
Fax: +46 8 21 08 51
amirr@kth.se, www.kth.se
A circular economy is one that is restorative and regenerative by design, and aims to keep products, components, and materials at their highest value at all times. It is a systemic approach to the economy designed to benefit businesses, society, and the environment. Companies are increasingly tapping into its opportunities by designing business models that generate value from reuse, remanufacturing, leasing, and design for multiple lifecycles. However, there are very few tools to support manufacturers in adopting such a systemic approach. ResCoM project, which stands for Resource Conservative Manufacturing, has developed a methodology and the first practical tools of their kind to help fill this gap. The ResCoM outcomes help designers and manufacturers understand how collection, remanufacturing and reuse of products can lead to more profitable, resource-efficient and resilient business practices compared to the current linear manufacturing system. Together they support manufacturers in realising the potential in developing products that fit a circular economy. By assessing the economic and environmental performance of circular economy business models, and integrating product design considerations, the tools enable manufacturers to move beyond idea generation and into implementation. The methodology and tools are complemented by a series of industrial case studies that have demonstrated its application across various industries. Four original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) - Bugaboo, Gorenje, Loewe and tedrive - used the ResCoM methodology and tools to implement closed-loop product systems in their industries. Lessons learned from these pilots also fed into the creation of guidelines to support other companies in implementing the ResCoM methodology.
Project Context and Objectives:
Closed-loop manufacturing systems (also referred in this document as circular economy systems) are viewed as a solution to the problem of resource scarcity. Nevertheless, despite a large amount of research in this area, there is no common understanding of the key enablers, which in turn hinders their successful adoption by business (OEMs) and society (consumers) in practice.
The main objective of the ResCoM project is to develop an innovative and practical framework, supported by a lifecycle management software platform for the industrial implementation of closed-loop manufacturing systems.
Today, the most common strategy for closing the loop is the recycling of manufactured products for material recovery. Recycling in this context is well established in specific manufacturing sectors such as consumer electronics, textiles, paper or metals. It has a clear environmental impact as it reduces landfills and provides a source of valuable raw materials, acquired with minimised environmental burden. However, material losses are significant even at high recycling rates (for instance, recycling the drinks packaging aluminium results in 15-20 % loss of material as dross) and therefore, recycling cannot be the only solution. In addition it does not address fully the problem of resource conservation since a) significant efforts and enormous amount of energy are required in sorting, separating, re-melting and reprocessing the recycled materials and b) up to 85% of the manufacturing value of a product is associated with labour, energy and equipment (and not raw materials), which is lost as recycling shreds the product in an attempt to recover only the material value.
ResCoM aims to leverage the potential of converting the tangible and intangible waste into a highly valuable resource, focusing on retaining EOL products or components and putting them back into the value chain through remanufacturing or reuse (i.e. multiple lifecycles).
The economic, environmental and strategic benefits of closed-loop product systems are well researched and documented such as the study published by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in 2012 on the economic rationale of circular economy shows an estimated net material cost saving of more than USD 600 billion p.a. by 2025, driven by closed-loop product manufacturing systems. Despite these tremendous economic and environmental advantages closed-loop manufacturing struggles to become a mainstream practice. Research shows that the closed-loop manufacturing is still in its infancy, fragmented and driven primarily by third-party small or medium sized remanufacturers. In order to elevate its status to a mainstream business, it is critical to raise the interest, involvement and support of the OEMs, and to integrate reuse and remanufacturing strategies into the mainstream business for closing the product loop eventually.
In line with “cradle to cradle” thinking, ResCoM’s approach aims to transform the tangible and intangible product waste into valuable resources, supported by the ResCoM “pillars” in a systemic perspective.
• Design: design methodologies for multiple lifecycles
• Supply chains: integrated forward and reverse supply chain solutions that can handle the dynamics of multiple lifecycles
• Business models: innovative service models supporting product returns to OEMs
• Technology: collaborative PLM software platform supporting multiple lifecycles and supplemented by material databases, remanufacturing technologies and best practices disseminated to OEMs
It is important to emphasize that the ResCoM approach is not limited to encouraging product reuse and remanufacturing. The ResCoM framework is meant to evaluate all possible forms of closing the loop including product level recycling, component level recycling and material level recycling. However, in the ResCoM concept, material recycling is the least efficient alternative from the perspective of environmental performance and is only used when the other two alternatives are not feasible.
Project Results:
3. Main S & T results/foregrounds
In addition to all the deliverables, ResCoM has developed a wide range of methods and tools. This section summarises the key outcomes of ResCoM which include different methods to facilitate transition to circular systems together with product design, analysis, analytic, and the Product Lifecycle Management tools.
3.1 Guidelines for generic implementation of the ResCoM framework
Companies that are interested in implementing closed loop product systems can find the transition phase overwhelming and complex. For different companies the transition paths can be different and often the reference point (where to start and what to consider at the starting of the transition) is not easy to know. To support companies in transition, the research work in WP2 has led to the guidelines for generic implementation of the ResCoM framework. It defines the ResCoM requirements for generic use, applicable to any company that wants to transit from linear to closed loop product systems and these requirements are classified according to the ResCoM pillars, i.e. business model, product design, supply chain and information and communication technology (ICT). The guidelines and the requirements are the results of the lessons learned through ResCoM project, analysis of ResCoM case companies’ current status and review of relevant industrial examples as well as literature. The outcomes for this work have been documented in a report (D2.4) and made public through ResCoM website. This report helps companies to get an understanding of which transition paths are appropriate for them and which generic requirements they need to fulfil to follow the chosen path.
3.2 Guidelines for generic ResCoM Design Methodology for Multiple Lifecycle Products
By combining the lessons learned from the four ResCoM cases and studying the best practices, a generic methodology was developed for other companies that want to engage in the development of multiple-lifecycle products. The work has been conducted as part WP 3 and a report (D3.4) has been made public which describes a stepwise approach for developing such products. The approach includes a suite of design tools as well as a practical case study example to illustrate the implementation in practice. This work has also led to six product design tools described below.
3.3 Circular Pathfinder
The Circular Pathfinder is a starting tool for companies interested in circular economy thinking, allowing them to explore and identify the most suitable circular pathways for their products, by answering just a few questions. Informed by the best-practices of other companies, the Circular Pathfinder guides the user towards circular pathways that have potential in their specific case. It explains why certain pathways, such as product remanufacturing, life extension, or recycling are of interest, with examples from companies that have already applied them, and suggests further steps to take. Within the ResCoM cases, this tool helps to select the product design and analytic tools that are relevant to a specific case.
3.4 Multiple Lifecycle Product Design
Modular design is a key enabler of circular business models that rely on exchange of components between products, product generations and product families. The tool uses the existing Modular Function Deployment (MFD) method and extends it for multiple lifecycles, allowing companies to plan their product modules along multiple use-cycles and lifecycles. The tool helps to determine the module interfaces and how they are to be standardised to support multiple lifecycle value propositions.
3.5 Part Planning
When designing for long product lifetimes and good reparability, the availability of spare parts is a key issue to address within a Circular Business model. A solution for offering spare parts in a way that is economically viable is to design for spare part compatibility across product generations.
Strategic planning of carry-over parts should happen very early in the design process. The Part Planning tool is geared towards this design stage, providing designers a fast and simple tool for part planning. Via an interdisciplinary workshop session, the tool supports designers to analyse and plan for carry-over parts across multiple product use-cycles
3.6 Reman Design Checklist
Many durable products are already being remanufactured, as it allows companies to use their high-quality parts again and offer customers products that perform as well as the originals. With Design for Remanufacturing, designers already take future remanufacturing into account when designing the product.
The Reman Design Checklist helps product engineers explicitly consider the remanufacturability of a product design by analysing and scoring the remanufacturability of its components: information that allows the team to track progress between design iterations. The output of the tool includes an evaluation of product components and recommendations for further improvements.
3.7 Upgrade Forecast
Many products, such as televisions and mobile phones, are subject to rapid technological improvements. As a consequence they are frequently replaced before they break down in favour of a new product with new capabilities. For this type of product, a business model can aim to extend the life of a product that has been designed to be upgraded. By allowing new features to be added to the product, its useful lifetime can be prolonged and it can offer better value for money to customers
The Upgrade Forecast tool is designed to help OEMs determine what upgrade specifications to include in product design. The tool facilitates interdisciplinary teams involved in product development to visualise future trends, demands and disturbances, to select the product features that will require upgrading, and to determine the specifications of these future upgrades.
3.8 Circularity Calculator
The purpose of the Circularity Calculator is to help designers that work in the fuzzy front end of product development to obtain a ‘circularity instinct’: an understanding of how strategic design decisions influence the degree of circularity of resource flows and potential value capture within the product-service-system.
The Circularity Calculator tool displays the potential mass and value flows of a product, based on whether the different parts are either reused, remanufactured and/or recycled. With this tool designers can model different conceptual design solutions and business models to explore and compare design scenarios and see their impact on performance indices such as overall circularity, recycling rate and value recovery potential. Both high level and more detailed analyses are possible to help generate ideas and recommendations and provide timely results.
3.9 Models of closed loop product systems
The work in WP 4 has led to 4 models of closed loop product systems developed for 4 OEMs. The models are developed using multimethod simulation approach that includes system dynamics and agent based modelling approach. These models are made available to OEMs which they can use to assess the economic and environmental performance of various scenarios of closed loop products systems. This work has also led to development of analytical and multimethod tools described below. The methodological approaches used to develop the analytical and multimethod simulation tools have been published in the scientific journals by KTH and INSEAD.
This work has been a major input for the ResCoM OEMs to design and evaluate the virtual models of the market pilots.
3.10 Analytical Tool
The analytical tool compares the performance of the linear conventional business with that of potential closed-loop scenarios.
The analytical tools calculate the performance based on specific scenarios for the business model, supply chain and design. For each scenario, a number of parameters related to cost (production costs, forward and reverse logistics costs, costs of the recovery process, management costs, and end-of-life costs) can be entered to calculate the performance of the system. Critical factors, for example the remanufacturing success rate, return rate, lease conditions, and lifespan of products can be modified to test different cases. Necessary investments costs for design, reverse engineering, or remanufacturing facilities can also be included where needed. CO2 calculations are added to the tool to give insights into the environmental performance.
The tool will allow to gauge potential profitability and environmental impact of more circular system alternatives, and to compare those to the current linear systems. Sensitivity analysis helps the OEMs understand the boundaries of profitable closed-loop systems and what is needed to make the systems profitable in the future. With only a few input variables, the tool provides quick answers and directions for further in-depth evaluations of potential closed-loop business models. Companies with similar structure as the OEMs in ResCoM can easily use the tool to obtain insightful preliminary analyses and to better understand what elements may currently block successful transition to more circular systems.
3.11 Multimethod Simulation Tool
The tool has been developed using system dynamics (SD) and agent based (AB) modelling techniques to assess economic and environmental performance of circular product systems from a system perspective. More than 120 variables are considered simultaneously in order to describe a typical circular product system, which deals with changes and effects of business models, product design and supply chain, addressing challenges including:
- Customer acceptance and expected demand of new business models
- Consideration and effects of product design alternatives
- Design of supply chain to respond to the needs of the new business models
The integration of the developed sub-models for business models, product design and supply chains give a comprehensive overall picture in order to understand the dynamics of circular product systems while making use of today’s available computing-power.
3.12 The ResCoM platform and tools
The ResCoM platform is a web based application which brings together software applications and descriptive (i.e. non-software) tools and methods in one place to support decision-making and implementation of closed-loop product systems. The platform is public and accessible at, http://www.rescoms.eu/platform-and-tools. The free trial version of all methodologies and tools are available through creating a user credential. The methodologies and tools in the platform are demonstrated using a neutral example, i.e. a ‘bicycle case’ that is not related to the ResCoM cases.
Furthermore, all virtual models of the 4 ResCoM cases are accessible by the consortium members. This layer of the platform demonstrates methodologies and tools that are applied to ResCoM cases.
3.13 Enhanced Eco Audit Tool: GRANTA MI:BoM Analyzer
MI:BoM Analyzer enables users to assess environmental, regulatory, and supply chain risks, and to support increased resource efficiency for products. Users import and edit a bill of materials (BoM) and instantly run reports that apply an extensive database of materials, process, and environmental data to assess product risk and guide design decisions. This includes newly-enhanced Eco Audit reports, which can assess environmental impacts and cost across multiple use cycles, providing detailed information on reverse logistics and estimating the break-even point for closed loop remanufacturing against linear production in terms of both environmental impacts and lifecycle cost.
3.14 Product Multiple Lifecycle Management Tool
The PMLM tool is an enhanced PLM tool supporting the closed loop, multi life cycle product and supply chain in an integrated and traceable way. The information managed includes production definition (multiple lifecycles), product design (including material selection), usage and maintenance definition, business model definition and supply chain definition. From the well-structured product data, users can check:
- Processes linked to remanufacturing and closed loop supply chains
- Product changes traced during the multiple lifecycles
- Product evolution throughout the multiple lifecycles
The tracing system enables OEMs seeking to maximize the return from product by going beyond the initial product sales and providing customers with value-added service throughout the product lifecycle.
3.15 Virtual model of market pilots
The work in WP 6 has led to 4 demo of virtual model of market pilots for 4 ResCoM cases. Each company has defined several scenarios of circular systems that they are interested to explore, which have been modelled virtually using the methods and tools developed (and described above) in ResCoM. These virtual model of market pilots are accessible by all consortium partners through the ResCoM website.
3.16 A generic virtual model of a market pilot
A similar generic demo of virtual model of a market pilot has also been developed and made available for public through the ResCoM website. For this demo a neutral example, i.e. bicycle has been used. This demo contains all the features of the ResCoM OEM’s virtual model of market pilots. Functionality of all the tools has been demonstrated through this virtual model as well.
3.17 A generic guideline for companywide implementation of the ResCoM platform
‘A generic guideline for companywide implementation of the ResCoM platform’ is a descriptive document that has been made public. In this document the four OEMs that participated in the ResCoM project - Bugaboo, Gorenje, Loewe, and tedrive - share their practical experiences and best practices in developing circular business models. This also provides an overview of how to get started, design, pilot, and scale a circular development project, followed by a concise explanation of their best practices for each of these phases.
This stepwise guideline will help companies to get started with the transition from a linear to a circular system.
3.18 Proposal for standardization
The aim of the ‘proposal for standardization’ is to introduce the standardization community the need for standardization of the information flows in the circular economy in general and for Resource Conservative Manufacturing especially. This has been done by defining the usage of existing international information standards in the ResCoM project and highlighting the need where the standards should be improved to take the ResCoM’s closed loop product systems into account.
The digitalization movement supported by Internet of Things, Cloud, and Big Data etc. are enablers for effective circular economy. In common for these new technologies is the need to understand the communicated data, what it represents and what context it is related to. In ResCoM a circular economy view of the information managed in the lifecycle of a product and its supporting system. The view is based on the ISO 10303-239 Product Life Cycle Support which is an information model, defining the information managed in a linear Product Life Cycle. In ResCoM view of the standard model specializations are defined to support the circularity nature of the product lifecycle.
This proposal is a public document made available through the ResCoM website.
3.19 Policy Brief
The policy brief summarizes industry-specific challenges based on the ResCoM case studies and provides policy recommendations on how natural resources and waste can be reduced based on particular closed-loop scenarios.
During the course of collecting insights for a policy brief the ResCoM consortium and particularly the industrial partners (OEMs) have been addressed. Based on a scenario of a profitable and environmental friendly closed-loop system the ResCoM OEMs have named relevant directives that may hinder practices of reuse/remanufacturing/recycling or the use of parts or components which have been reused/remanufactured/recycled.
This policy brief is a public document made available through the ResCoM website.
Potential Impact:
4. Potential impact
ResCoM has proposed and taken a bottom-up approach to support industries to transit from linear to closed loop systems. The motivation to choose the bottom-up approach is inherent to the fact that if the manufacturing companies get engaged and get convinced that this is the way forward, the transition will be faster. Therefore, the aim has been to create a significant impact in the manufacturing sectors. The four case studies have revealed lot of challenges and barriers that need to be addressed in order to push the bottom-up approach. This approach has also helped in identifying some issues related to the top-down approach that need to be addressed.
Furthermore, the ResCoM developments are the direct reflection of the industrial needs and all developments as well as outcomes of the case studies are made publicly available. This has attracted a lot of industrial actors and individuals, and this community is continuous growing. The ResCoM consortium members are quite often being contacted by people who want to know more about the project and the developments.
In addition, the project has impact on several aspects as described below.
4.1 Circular economy
A circular economy is one that is restorative and regenerative by design, and aims to keep products, components and materials at their highest utility and value at all times. It distinguishes between technical and biological cycles. The ResCoM framework addresses the problem of structural waste by evaluating possible forms of closing the loop, including design for reuse, redistribution, remanufacturing, refurbishment and recycling. Waste is turned into a valuable resource, improving resource efficiency by retaining products or components after use and putting them back into the value chain.
4.2 Best practices
ResCoM developed four pilots with OEMs in different industries (automobile, white goods, consumer electronics and consumer products). Lessons learned from the pilots provided generic guidelines for adapting the ResCoM framework to individual companies and facilitating market uptake. These examples are being demonstrated in many occasions by ResCoM partners creating a momentum for industries to implement closed loop approach. To give an example, as an effect of this project Goernej and Bosch, the two largest companies in Europe have teamed up to take the ideas further with the support from H2020 funding.
4.3 Economic and environmental impact
ResCoM can help companies to boost their competitiveness. Manufacturers adopting the ResCoM framework can increase resource efficiency and reduce pressure against resource shortage and scarcity. They will be able to significantly reduce raw material costs, distributing them over several usecycles of their products and creating a strategic cost advantage. Specifically, EU-based companies can deter the entry of low cost (non EU-based) competitors by introducing lower cost remanufactured products. Adopting the ResCoM framework will help companies adjust to market changes more quickly than in linear models.
Implementing changes based on the ResCoM framework is likely to have significant impacts on waste reduction, energy reduction and resource conservation: For example, in comparison to manufacturing from new, only 10 to 15% of virgin material is required in remanufacturing, and 85% of energy can be saved. Hence, an uptake of remanufacturing has potential to reduce the degradation of ecosystems on a similar scale.
The level of economic and environmental impact that can be achieved in a specific case is related to how far a company goes with the implementation of the ResCoM approach and how fast a company will adapt their existing linear systems to a complete closed loop system. The virtual model of a market pilots developed in ResCoM have shown positive results even with minor changes (such as only by changing product design to life extension or business models to leasing or introducing remanufacturing) in the OEMs’ current systems. For instance, one of the closed loop scenarios (i.e. two times remanufacturing of washing machines) of Gorenje that has been analysed using the Enhanced Eco Audit Tool has shown a reduction of ca. 50% of CO2 emissions and a decrease of the energy usage of ca. 47% when. The same scenario has shown ca. 15% cost reduction when it was analysed using the multimethod simulation tool. If changes in business models, supply chain, product design and technological infrastructures are done simultaneous as suggested in the ResCoM approach the impact will be significant.
More of such details of economic and environmental impact are presented in D 6.2-D6.5.
4.4 Job creation
New reverse logistics and remanufacturing activities that will be introduced by companies implementing the ResCoM framework will have higher potential of creating new jobs in the supply chain and manufacturing.
4.5 Scientific community
ResCoM has created a set of tools and models for researchers working in the area of closed-loop product systems. The learnings and data from the industrial pilots were used as a knowledge base to derive guidelines for the generic framework. Furthermore, the ResCoM software platform to support decision making can also be used by scientists, designers and operational managers to research, plan and implement closed-loop product systems.
Through the website, collaborative platform, scientific publications and other dissemination activities ResCoM has engaged a large scientific community and the community is growing continuously. In less than two months after the launch of ResCoM methodologies and tools, the platform has attracted more than 600 visitors and about 150 users. The ResCoM peer reviewed scientific publications collectively have been cited more than 550 times.
4.6 European Commission initiatives and standards
Various European initiatives address areas related to ResCoM. The ResCoM project seeks opportunities to leverage and support these initiatives. The outcome of the ResCoM project will also help inform policy making via the European Resource Efficiency Programme and provide input to standardisation committees at European and other levels.
ResCoM has issued a policy brief and delivered the input to standardization committees (ISO 10303-239 and ISO/WD 8887-1). The plan is to initiate and get involved in creating a standard on circular economy together with NIST.
In addition to the impact above:
• R&D partners, KTH and TUD are employing more researchers to work dedicatedly on the ideas of closed-loop manufacturing and circular economy
• KTH has also established its Circular Economy Initiative with a base funding of more than one million Euros, dedicated to research and education on the topic.
• KTH partly inspired by ResCoM has also hired for two new faculty positions in the area of circular economy at the ITM school level where different departments are collaborating to support the CE initiative. Several new faculty positions have been announced in December, 2017 and January, 2018.
• At KTH a PhD course in circular economy has stared in January, 2018 with 30 participants.
• Few of the ResCoM consortium partners teamed up with Gorenje and Bosch and received funding from H2020 to move forward with implementation of several of the ResCoM ideas and developments.
• TUD, partly inspired by ResCoM has established a professorship in Circular Product Design at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering and a full professor is now hired
• One spin-off, a consultancy (http://www.cirbes.se) in industrial implementation of CE solutions is already set-up by the research team of KTH
5. Dissemination activities
See section 5 of the attached report of the list of publications and dissemination activities.
6. Exploitation of results
The exploitation plan defines the strategy and guidelines for exploiting the scientific and technological developments that have resulted from the ResCoM project. This includes the future exploitation activities and any further expected results.
6.1 ResCoM platform and tools
The ResCoM collaborative software platform will be exploited as a mode to promote the systematic approach for implementing closed-loop systems. Through this interactive platform the user will experience how closed-loop systems can be designed, analysed and implemented from a product’s conceptual design phase to the management of its multiple lifecycles. The platform will also show the systemic dependencies among business models, product design, supply chains and information management aspects and the importance of considering these aspects simultaneously. While the users will experience both the integrated platform and the tools as stand-alone, feedback will be collected and will be used to improve the tools further. A fully functional platform will be made available for public trial and use for one to three years after the project end.
In the first year following the end of ResCoM, the platform will be hosted on the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) server and KTH with the support from EMF and all other development partners will make sure that the platform remains functional. In case of errors or such in operating the platform, KTH will coordinate with the respective tool owner to resolve errors and keep the platform running.
In the second year the platform will be transferred to KTH’s server and an evaluation of the platform usage will be carried out. Based on the evaluation and the interests of the tool owners at that point of time, further actions needed to maintain the platform will be decided. In the meantime, it has been agreed that the consortium will review and provide small updates every 6 months.
Currently there is no plan or consent among partners to exploit the entire ResCoM platform as a commercial product/platform. However, each partner and tool developer has their own and individual exploitation plans which are describe below.
6.2 Eurostep (Share-A-space)
The ResCoM collaborative software platform is built on Share-A-space, an IT tool of Eurostep for secure PLM collaboration that is developed further in ResCoM project to support closed loop multiple lifecycle applications. It provides two functions: product-life circular support configuration management (i.e. product multiple lifecycle management) and extended enterprise secure collaboration (i.e. tools integration, the tools including the decision-making tools used/developed by ResCoM researchers and other tools used by 4 OEMs). It manages all the product-related information from the early conceptual design phase to the end-of-life (EOL) of a product. The ResCoM data models are also developed as the basis of the ResCoM collaborative software platform development, including developing the solution for managing products with multiple lifecycles and developing the ResCoM Web API and mappers for integrating ResCoM tools to the platform. These models were validated using the platform and industrial test cases.
As the leader of WP5, Eurostep will organise event and webinars internally and externally for communicating the ResCoM results, and actively cooperate with the project manager and all partners to disseminate and commercialise the platform. Eurostep takes the following responsibilities:
1. Present and demonstrate the functions of the platform
2. Present the ResCoM standard data model
6.3 Granta Design (Web BOM Analyzer)
Granta Design developed within the ResCoM project, a custom report to analyse and compare products that can be used for multiple use cycles thanks to closed loop remanufacturing. The sustainability assessment results are based on Granta’s background IP implemented to take into account the more complex mass flow of a circular recovery of products and components. The customer report is to be considered as a prototype that takes part into the wider Granta’s software solution “Product Intelligence”(https://www.grantadesign.com/products/mi/pi.htm ) that will be promoted and tested with a series of commercial partners and customers. The solution, that can be considered as stand-alone product, will be also presented as part of the wider outcome of the ResCoM project set of tools.
6.4 IDEAL&CO (Circular Pathfinder, Circularity Calculator, Reman Design Checklist, Upgrade Forecast, Part Planning)
Together with TU Delft, IDEAL&CO has developed a stepwise approach to Circular product design that we intend to apply to future design projects with our clients. Furthermore, the five Circular Design tools that IDEAL&CO developed within ResCoM will be offered to OEM clients for implementing circular design in different ways;
1) Use the tools as within the ResCoM project, to provide workshops and longer-term guidance to companies. This includes the possible integration of the tools within PLM systems, which we will pursue in cooperation with Eurostep, and includes possible cooperation with members from the EMF-network that would benefit from the use of these tools.
2) Provide circular product design and consultancy services to companies, using the tools in IDEAL&CO’s own back catalogue.
3) Create customised tools for a specific company that has unique requirements towards implementation in their product development process.
4) Further develop the tools into commercial products that companies can engage with on their own. To this extend, the SME-partners of the ResCoM-project, including the ResCoM spin-off CirBES, plan to submit a Eureka proposal to support the commercial development of their ResCoM tools.
5) Furthermore, IDEAL&CO plans to contribute to research & implementation projects to further develop and implement circular design & supporting tools. IDEAL&CO is partner in a new consortium led by SUPSI-ISTePS, and including bicycle (re)manufacturer Roetz for a circular business implementation project that has applied for Horizon 2020 funding (for the H2020-IND-CE-2016-17 call - industry 2020 in the Circular Economy) in which the Circularity Calculator will be employed.
6) Finally, IDEAL&CO and TU Delft will explore the use of the ResCoM design tools in the design curriculum, in particular within circular design project assignments at the Industrial Design Engineering faculty of the TU Delft.
6.5 INSEAD (Analytical Tool)
The analytical tools are developed as stand-alone tool that can be used without the need for extensive training or instruction. Each tool starts with a one-page introduction that briefly explains the tool including what type of business model is assessed, the assumptions made in the model, what type of questions can be answered with the tool, and the limitations of the tool. It further provides instructions on how to use the tool, making use of colour coding to direct users to the right cells in the excel tool. An intuitive input, results, and sensitivity sheet gives the user the possibility to apply to the tool to their specific case and interpret the results. This is done to limit the need for external consultancy.
On the ResCoM platform, the tools will be explained and screenshots will be provided to give an impression of the working of the tools. Contact details will be provided in case any company would like to receive more information and decisions are made on a case-by-case basis. At the moment, discussions are underway with a large financial organization which might be willing to purchase the tools for using them when advising customers that are pursuing circular business models. IDEAL&CO also might partner with a consultant in the future to apply the tools to different companies.
The method behind the model and the knowledge developed during the creation of the tools and the testing of the tools with the ResCoM partners will be disseminated via academic journal papers and
conferences (see academic outcomes).
6.6 KTH (Multi-method Simulation)
The tools that KTH has developed will be commercially exploited through the spin-off Circular Business and Engineering Systems AB, CirBES AB (http://www.cirbes.se/) established by the core develop team at KTH. CirBES AB is a consulting firm aiming to support industries in implementing circular systems and carryout collaborative and/or independent research within circular manufacturing systems. The tools are already available for customers to use as part of the consulting services. Within 3-year time trial version of the tools will be made available for customers to purchase/subscribe before they decide to purchase the full package of consulting services.
6.7 Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Access to the ResCoM tools internally at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation will allow better understanding how these can support businesses decision making in the transition to a circular economy. A key exploitation activity for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation will be to share the outcomes and learnings from the ResCoM project, including the potential for the tools to assist the Ellen MacArthur Foundation network with decision making in circular economy business models. This will enable both the immediate Foundation network and more widely to a general business and academic audience to benefit from the key learnings of the ResCoM project, and to be introduced the final tools. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation will also continue to connect the
ResCoM network with relevant stakeholders that would be interested or could benefit from the use of the ResCoM tools.
6.8 Gorenje
As a continuation of the work in ResCoM Gorenje has initiated an implementation project, in which 300 washing machines will be installed in Austria, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Denmark. Pay-per-use will be adopted as the business model where each washing machine will be refurbished twice and will serve over 3 life cycles of 5 years. This will be done through a H2020 project that is planned to kick off in June 2018.
As a perpetration of this project, Gorenje is currently in the process of developing a set of prototype of WiFi enabled smart washing machines which are being tested for connectivity. This research and development work is part of a Eureka Eurostar research project, in which Gorenej is collaborating with KTH and two IT development companies. The project is aiming to bring forward a commercial IT-platform that will support the implementation of closed loop systems. This It-platform will establish the connection between the machines, users, Gorenje and service providers etc. and at the same time will be used for condition monitoring of the machines.
Gorenje also plans to push the ResCoM approach and thinking in other home appliances manufactured by them.
6.9 Bugaboo
Already within the timeframe of the ResCoM project, Bugaboo has implemented a leasing pilot. The pilot has provided a good knowledge base and revealed several practical challenges such as abusive use of strollers by consumers or profit margin shrinkage due to cost of credit check of potential leasers etc. In order to move forwards Bugaboo needs to overcome or address these challenges. Bugaboo has the plan to scale-up the leasing pilot, but currently Bugaboo is going through an organizational restructuring which may delay the planned exploitation activities. Bugaboo will also consider the opportunity for refurbishment of their strollers in the future, and expect their thinking and the ResCoM tools to be integrated into this process. Further projects will explore increasing the recycled content in Bugaboo products.
6.10 Loewe
Loewe plans to continue to exploit the ResCoM methodology and tools in their plans to create upgradable TVs. Loewe plans to develop modular TV which will enable both software and hardware updates in order to extend the life of the TVs. Loewe also plans to carry out a leasing pilot where instead of selling TVs they will lease home entertainment systems, informed by the ResCoM learnings.
6.11 Tedrive
Through ResCoM, tedrive has explored the possibility of applying different business models to increase their capacity of remanufacturing of steering systems, such as buying cores from the OMEs or the free market. Both models have revealed some challenges that Tedrive needs to deal with which will be their priority for the near future. Tedrive will also consider to implement better packaging for core collection in future, and expect their thinking and the ResCoM tools to be integrated into this process.
List of Websites:
www.rescoms.eu
Amir Rashid, PhD
Associate Professor
Head of division, Manufacturing and Metrology Systems
KTH, School of Industrial Engineering and Management
Department of Production Engineering
Brinellvägen 68, 100 44 Stockholm
Phone: +46 8 790 6373,
Fax: +46 8 21 08 51
amirr@kth.se, www.kth.se