Services as a gateway for circularity in manufacturing

Context

Many manufacturers now have established service businesses to support the use of their manufactured products by providing product maintenance and repairs, product and software upgrades, operations and maintenance support, or product leasing. Academically, this is known as servitization. Servicing products gives the provider unique access to create circular supply chains by returning products or components, which have reached the end of their use phase, into the supply stream for reuse, remanufacture or recycling. A circular set-up based on services requires collaboration across the supply chain, including customers, component manufacturers and material suppliers. This project aims to develop long-term partnerships with manufacturers and their supply chain partners to support mutual knowledge exchange, long-term collaboration on funding proposals and research studies. This enables the PI to establish a long-term sustainable research and impact relationships with industry partners.

Aims and Objectives

1. Assess practical possibilities for circularity based on service access and assess related sustainability performance effects
2. Identify and explore research partnerships with related supply chain partners for circular set-ups (Figure 2) to enable long-term collaboration
3. Establish and agree plan for further collaboration with focal company and related supply chain partners based on developed circularity scenarios
4. Explore collaboration possibilities with other service providers and international academics with related expertise to create wider network