Remanufacturing: The way to give old equipment a new lease of life

Workers at a remanufacturing company in Hejian City, Hebei Province, work on an auto parts production line. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Mu Yu

　　After a series of processes such as dismantling, cleaning, testing, additive manufacturing, machining, assembly, and testing, a mechanical and electrical equipment that is on the verge of being scrapped can be reborn and put back into use with higher efficiency. This technology that "rescues" electromechanical equipment from the brink of obsolescence to the production line is remanufacturing.

　　According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently issued the "Mechanical and Electrical Products Remanufacturing Industry Standard Conditions", remanufacturing refers to the use of advanced and applicable processes, technologies, equipment and materials to professionally repair or upgrade old parts, so that the performance and quality of remanufactured products meet or exceed the production process of prototype new products. Remanufactured products must meet the requirements of relevant national mandatory standards for safety, energy saving, and environmental protection.

　　So, has remanufacturing become a new track in the manufacturing industry, what difficulties do it face, and what is the future development trend? The reporter interviewed industry experts and practitioners on this.

　　It's not a simple patch

　　Remanufacturing is not simply repairing and refurbishing. "The mainland remanufacturing industry has more stringent requirements for the performance and quality of products, and must meet or exceed the prototype new products." Wu Gang, director of the green development department of the environmental protection industry development center of the machinery industry, said that the state strictly controls the quality standards of remanufactured products in order to eliminate the doubts of the industry and users about remanufactured products and ensure that everyone has a clear and unified understanding of remanufactured products.

　　The core technologies of remanufacturing, such as laser cladding technology and surfacing technology, although they belong to surface treatment, their functions are far from being comparable to simple repairs. For example, after a long period of operation, the blades on the rotating shaft of a steam turbine are worn or missing from the surface, which affects the efficiency of use. By adding metal elements to the surface of a product, remanufacturing technology not only enhances the strength, toughness and corrosion resistance of the product, but also significantly improves its performance.

　　On the mainland, remanufacturing is not limited to restoration, but also to upcycling. Wu Gang pointed out that taking the shield machine as an example, the shield machine with a diameter of 6 meters that was retired from a certain project may have to expand the diameter to 8-9 meters according to the needs of the next project. At this time, the remanufacturing technology can give full play to its advantages and realize the upgrading and transformation of the original shield machine through the expansion of the diameter.

　　At present, the remanufacturing industry in mainland China covers construction machinery, machine tools, automobiles, heavy machinery, petrochemical general machinery, internal combustion engines, electrical appliances, agricultural machinery, mechanical basic parts, cultural office equipment and other fields. In the remanufacturing industry, there are not only enterprises dedicated to the production of valves, auto parts and cultural office equipment, but also institutions focusing on the manufacturing of high-end equipment such as gas turbines and aircraft.

　　Hebei Ruizhao Laser Remanufacturing Technology Co., Ltd., as a national remanufacturing pilot unit, is at the forefront of the remanufacturing industry. Han Hongsheng, secretary of the party committee and chairman of the company, said that compared with the manufacture of new products, remanufactured products can save 50% of costs, 60% of energy saving, 70% of materials, reduce air pollutant emissions by more than 80% in the production process, and almost no solid waste is generated.

　　Han Hongsheng believes that the greatest significance of the development of the remanufacturing industry is to maximize the use of resources and reduce waste. The company's development history also proves the great potential of the remanufacturing industry in green development. Over the past 18 years of development, the company has developed from a small workshop with only 8 workers to a national-level specialized and new "little giant" enterprise with total assets of more than 300 million yuan, saving 420,000 tons of metal resources, saving 580,000 tons of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 700,000 tons.

　　Wu Gang believes that although there are many new tracks in the manufacturing industry, remanufacturing, as a new track in the manufacturing industry, can not ignore its role in saving resources and reducing costs, and may be a track to maintain permanent and sustainable development.

　　There is still room for potential

　　After nearly 30 years of development, the mainland's remanufacturing industry still has huge growth potential to be tapped.

　　Wu Gang pointed out that the current output value of the mainland's remanufacturing industry is still less than 200 billion yuan, and the gap between the huge market stock of mechanical and electrical products and the demand for remanufactured products is obvious, and the development is not sufficient. In addition, the scale of remanufacturing enterprises is generally small and the number is small. Taking auto parts remanufacturing as an example, even if the field has been relatively mature in China, there are only 66 companies that have passed the remanufacturing quality management system certification.

　　At the production level, talent has become the bottleneck of enterprise development.

　　Han Hongsheng introduced that the remanufacturing industry has the characteristics of long return on investment cycle, high technical risk and market risk. At present, the remanufacturing enterprises in mainland China are mainly small and medium-sized enterprises. For these companies, attracting skilled talent to drive technological innovation is a challenge. Although Hebei Ruizhao Laser Remanufacturing Technology Co., Ltd. has continuously introduced talents through "settling" and "co-construction", and has jointly established the Hebei Mechanical and Electrical Equipment Remanufacturing Industry Technology Research Institute with Tianjin University, Tianjin Polytechnic University and other universities and scientific research institutions, there is still a lack of professional talents. Han Hongsheng called on the state to give more policy support to remanufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises in terms of qualification maintenance, cost reduction and carbon trading quota mechanism innovation, so that enterprises can retain more funds to attract talents to overcome technical problems.

　　At the consumer level, the lack of public awareness of remanufactured products is an important obstacle to the development of the industry.

　　Wu Gang stressed that the society lacks a comprehensive understanding of the remanufacturing industry, and the public has doubts about the performance of remanufactured products. For example, in the field of automobile maintenance, even if the performance of remanufactured products has reached or even exceeded the standard of new prototype products, and the price is more advantageous, car owners are often more inclined to choose new products from the original manufacturer rather than remanufactured products. Therefore, he believes that it is important to increase public awareness and confidence in remanufactured products.

　　The market outlook is promising

　　In the development of the remanufacturing industry, it is still facing challenges such as the lack of industry standards and insufficient market supervision.

　　Wu Gang pointed out that the current identification of remanufactured products mainly relies on government administrative means, such as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has published 10 batches of remanufactured product catalog. However, with the development of the market and the expansion of the industry scale, in the future, the identification of remanufactured products may gradually shift to the market certification model.

　　In addition, the remanufacturing industry lacks a unified statistical caliber and system, and only relies on a small number of industry organizations to calculate through limited data samples, resulting in the final data is difficult to accurately reflect the development trends of industry output value changes and enterprise increases and decreases. This not only affects the accurate grasp of industry dynamics by relevant departments, but also restricts the accuracy of policy formulation, and hinders the rapid development of the industry to a certain extent.

　　From the policy level, the state has introduced a number of policies to support the development of the remanufacturing industry. From the "Opinions on Promoting the Development of the Remanufacturing Industry" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission in 2010, which pointed out that remanufacturing is an advanced form of "reuse" of the circular economy, to the "Action Plan for Promoting Large-scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Trade-in" issued by the State Council in 2024, emphasizing the in-depth promotion of traditional equipment remanufacturing such as auto parts, construction machinery, and machine tools, and exploring the development of high-end equipment remanufacturing business in emerging fields such as wind power, photovoltaic, and aviation. These policies provide strong support for the development of the remanufacturing industry. Han Hongsheng expects that driven by the support of national policies and the growth of market demand, the remanufacturing industry is expected to usher in a stage of rapid development.

　　Wu Gang said that at present, the mainland is actively expanding its export markets to Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, South America and other regions. In terms of export strategy, in addition to the promotion of high-end advanced industrial equipment, it will also appropriately promote economical and applicable remanufactured products. Therefore, he expects that the remanufacturing industry will continue to maintain a strong growth trend of 15% per year, showing broad market prospects and development potential.

Source: Science and Technology Daily