Reuse-oriented redesign method of used products based on axiomatic design theory and QFD

Remanufacturing is not just the process of performance recovery or function addition, while remanufactured product should be designed as the process of new product design. Redesign, as the basis and foundation of remanufacturing, is an innovative design process in which the functions and structures of remanufactured products are designed. Based on the analysis of the differences between the reuse-oriented redesign and the traditional new product design or the redesign based on reverse engineering, a novel reuse-oriented redesign method of used products based on axiomatic design theory and QFD (Quality function deployment) is presented to standardize and optimize the redesign process. More added-value locked into the used products during manufacturing can be reused if the remanufacturing process is designed from the view of axiomatic design. In addition, the process of conceptual redesign is analysed in detail, such as the process of function feature planning based on QFD, structure redesign, and so on. Finally, in order to verify its feasibility and validity, the proposed method is applied to machine tool remanufacturing and it is proved that redesigned products can obtain the similar performance with new designed products. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.