ABOUTAbout the consortium

Purpose of Establishing the Consortium

This consortium was established with the aim of sharing information and forming a vision for remanufacturing among stakeholders from industry, academia, and government, which is essential for promoting the Circular Economy and strengthening the competitiveness of manufacturing in the era of the Circular Economy, and thereby promoting the sophistication and widespread adoption of remanufacturing.

Background to the Establishment of the RECO

The realization of a Circular Economy (CE), along with the achievement of Carbon Neutrality (CN), is an essential requirement for the formation of a sustainable society. Although the amount of global resource consumption has been alarming since the 20th century, resource consumption has continued to expand significantly since then and is expected to continue to expand in the future. It is required to suppress and reduce resource consumption, and to achieve this reduction in a way that contributes to revitalizing society and the economy and strengthening industrial competitiveness, in other words, to realize CE. Remanufacturing holds the key to realizing resource conservation in CE and strengthening manufacturing competitiveness in the CE era. In order to strongly promote remanufacturing, technology development, technology integration, design and planning, business model design, standardization, and system design are necessary, and the establishment of a collaboration eco-system between industry, academia, and government is essential. In this situation, several industry-academia-government collaboration centres for remanufacturing have already been formed in other countries, and there was an increasing need to form a collaboration centre in Japan as well.

Scope of remanufacturing

Remanufacturing is defined as "the process of recovering used products, dismantling, cleaning, inspecting, repairing, reassembling, and finally inspecting them to return them to a functional state equivalent to that of a new product." Depending on the product field, it is also called rebuild, reconditioning, retrofit, or overhaul. This type of remanufacturing has attracted a lot of attention worldwide, especially since the 2010s, and is being promoted in Europe, the United States, and Asia. In a broader sense, remanufacturing can be defined as a concept that includes reuse and long-term use of products, that is, direct reuse of products, repair, refurbishing, diagnosis and maintenance, repair within the production process, and material reuse. By using these approaches to satisfy the required performance of products, parts, and component systems, while maximizing the functionality and lifespan potential of their components, we contribute to resource and energy conservation and create new social conventions and economic forms. In our centre’s activities, we define remanufacturing as an effort that contributes to circulation of inner loops and the use of products manufactured once for a longer period, compared to material recycling, which was the centre of conventional resource circulation, and we engage in research and development and activities to advance it and spread it in society.

Overview of Reman and Consortium

For information on what remanufacturing is and an overview of the Remanufacturing Promotion Consortium, please refer to the file at the link below.

Remanufacturing Overview

Remanufacturing Promotion Consortium Information

Board Member

OVERVIEWBusiness Overview