Relationship with core supplier

• Uncertainties about the quality of the used product. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

• Uncertainties about the quantity of the used product. [2] [3] [7] [8]

• Uncertainty about when the used product will return to the remanufacturing. [1] [3]

• The enterprises have a high quantity of suppliers and the selection often only considers financial issues. [1]

• The company does not have a close relationship with the final customer, when he is the supplier of raw material. [4]

• High cost for the used product individual returns. [9]

• When the customer is the supplier, he receives few incentives to return the product. [10]

 

Reverse logistics issues

• Excess of used products waiting to be remanufactured which increases the need for more space. [11] [10]

• Geographical dispersion of the used products location. [1] [10]

• Products transportation to the warehouse or the factory for remanufacturing, yet the product is not able to be reused. [1] [8]

• Need to structure reverse logistics. [10] [12]

• Parts that are inappropriate for remanufacturing that can hinder the access to those parts that have potential to be remanufactured. [11]

 

Remanufacturing operation

• High cost of used product inspection. [11] [13]

• Difficulty and lack of accuracy of the inspection stage. [8]  [13]

• Complexity and variability of the cleaning stage. [13] [14]

• Difficulties in the disassembly stage mainly due to the excess of fixation points in the products. [1] [10] [13] [15] [16]

• Low added value of the product and/or its parts to remanufacture. [16]

 

Remanufactured product selling

• Low demand of remanufactured products. [1] [11] [17] [18]

• Unstable demand of remanufactured products. [10] [12]

• The remanufactured product can be unattractive when compared with the new one. [1]

• Low customer acceptance. [15]

• Customer uncertainty about the quality of the remanufactured products, making them suspicious of the purchase. [4] [1] [11] [13] [15] [17] [19]

• The sales channel for remanufactured products is poorly structured and underdeveloped. [20]

   

Knowledge and abilities of employees

• Employees and senior management often do not know about the true meaning of the word "remanufacturing". [19] [21]

• The difficulty in standardizing the processes of remanufacturing due to the variability of components, parts, products and processes need employees with multiple skills. [1]

•  Lack of employees skills. [22] [23] [24]

 

Design for remanufacturing

• High diversity of products  making difficult to standardize the processes of remanufacturing. [22] [23] [24]

• Utilization of high variety of materials. [11]

• Utilization of less durable materials. [15]

• Low possibility of remanufacturing of most products because of the little concern in designing for remanufacturing. [12] [15] [18] [24]

• Immature technological products. [15]

• Design aesthetic is much more predominant compared to functional design. [13]

 

Information flow on remanufacturing system

• Lack of communication within the remanufacturing value chain. [23]

• Information about the logic and sequence of the product assembly which could help in the disassembly stage are not available for remanufacturing actor. [10]

• Information required for the remanufacturing are available late in the value chain. [1] [7]

• Lack of information about the product during its use phase. [23] [25]

• Little information about the benefits and quality of remanufacturing which arrives at the customer.

  [26]

 

Legislation

• Lack of standards and legislation for remanufacturing. [27]