Duc Pham, chance professor of engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Birmingham
The saying ‘You can’t have your cake and eat it’ has become a recurrent theme of the Brexit debate. Although I promise this is not another article about Brexit, it does address the European Council (EU) president Donald Tusk’s challenge: “Buy a cake, eat it, and see if it is still there on the plate.”1 My intention is to show how we have made having our cake and eating it possible, only in this case, our cake represents the earth’s limited resources. Having the cake is to safeguard those resources, and eating it is using them to manufacture the products we consume.
Over the last three years, my colleagues and I have been working on various projects aimed at preserving our cake while also allowing us to eat it. Our investigations have received the support of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)2, Innovate UK3, the European Structural Investment Funds (ESIF) Smart Factory Hub project 4 and the EU Horizon 2020 programme.5 We have been collaborating with industrial and academic partners from across the globe, including BorgWarner, Caterpillar, MCT, Reco Turbo, the High Speed Sustainable Manufacturing Institute (HSSMI), the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), Beihang University, the University of Castilla la Mancha (UCLM), the University of Patras and Wuhan University of Technology (WUT).
The cakeism strategy I am referring to is, of course, remanufacturing, a circular economy scheme that—as defined in the standard BS 8887-2: Design for manufacture, assembly, disassembly and end-of-life processing (MADE)—“[returns] a used product to at least its original performance with a warranty that is equivalent to or better than that of the newly manufactured product.” In our work, we have learnt that through remanufacturing, it is certainly possible to have our cake and eat it. Let me explain. Remanufacturing’s reuse of much of the original product’s material drastically reduces consumption of raw material, water and energy, meaning significant cost savings. Also, the remanufactured product can incorporate new components (for example, batteries and integrated circuits) and thus be better than the original.
A prime example, our project partner Caterpillar has found that their remanufactured diesel engine cylinder heads require 99 percent less raw material, 93 percent less water and 86 percent less energy to produce than new ones. Then add to these savings a 62 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and 996 percent cut in landfill space requirements6. According to the Triple win—the social, economic and environmental case for remanufacturing report by the All-Party Parliamentary Sustainable Resource Group (APSRG), remanufactured products cost 10–50 percent less than new products7. So, it can be said that with remanufacturing, consumers win, manufacturers win and the environment wins.
Now, returning to our cake. We can eat it because we can have the products that we need, and we can still have our cake because we are conserving valuable natural resources. Admittedly, as remanufacturing must still consume a certain amount of raw materials, water and energy, not all of our cake will be left on the plate. However, that should not be a problem, since who said we had to still have all the cake on the plate? Furthermore, as compensation for not having the whole cake, we will definitely get a smile from the baker on account of our kindness to the environment.
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References
1Tusk, D. (2016). Speech by President Donald Tusk at the European Policy Centre conference [speech]. October 13. Council of the European Union. Available at: http://bit.ly/2lSeBlV
2Robotic disassembly technology as a key enabler of autonomous remanufacturing [project ref: EP/N018524/1]. May 1, 2016–April 30, 2021. Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Available at: http://bit.ly/2kPl4O3
3Autonomous Remanufacture of Complex Products (ARCP) [project ref: 103667]. October 17–March 19. Funded by Innovate UK. Available at: http://bit.ly/2mjaIXh
4Advanced Manufacturing Technologies that Create, Activate and Automate (AMTECAA) [business support programme]. Supported by the European Structural Investment Funds (ESIF)-funded Smart Factory Hub project at the University of Birmingham. Available at: http://bit.ly/2mkHV4E
5FUTURING [project grant agreement ID: 723633]. September 1, 2016–February 28, 2018. Funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme. Available at: http://bit.ly/2kjJW0b
6Snodgress, D. Remanufacturing—sustainability for the 21st Century [discussion]. Caterpillar. Available at: http://bit.ly/2kPm58P
7Benoy, A.M., Owen, L. and Folkerson, M. (on behalf of inquiry co-chairs: Rt Hon Caroline Spelman MP and Barry Sheerman MP). (2014). Triple win—the social, economic and environmental case for remanufacturing [report]. All-Party Parliamentary Sustainable Resource Group (APSRG). Available at: http://bit.ly/2lQAZvZ