Product Design Evaluation of Refrigerators to Facilitate Remanufacturing Process

Remanufacturing is a strategy for processing a product at its end of life. Remanufacturing aims to return a used product or a product that has reached its end of life to the performance and condition of a new product and is equipped with the same new product warranty. Product design is an essential part of a product that increases the remanufacturability of the product. In this study, we discuss how to improve the product design of refrigerators. Refrigerators are white goods products almost every household has. If a refrigerator is not designed to be remanufactured, it will generate a lot of e-waste. This study proposes design improvement of refrigerator products by using the guidelines from design for remanufacturing based on life-cycle thinking. The proposed design improvement considers the product's overall life cycle. With the proposed revision of the refrigerator product design, the refrigerators are expected to be more remanufacturable and produce a more negligible environmental impact.