Maintenance-centered circular manufacturing

In the light of the growing problems of resource availability and environmental damage, it is indispensable to make best use of artifacts. For this purpose, maintenance and reuse are the most effective life cycle options. Maintenance and reuse are aimed at exhausting lives of artifacts, and use similar technologies such as condition diagnosis and restoration technologies. On the basis of this recognition, we reconsider the architecture of circular manufacturing and propose a concept of maintenance-centered circular manufacturing (MCCM), in which we do not discriminate between newly produced products and reused products as far as they can satisfy user requirements. As important issues in MCCM management, we discuss maintenance and reuse management from the aspect of operations and maintenance integration, and matching of the original use and the subsequent use. We also present maintenance and reuse management cases taking examples of the direct desulfurization facility at an oil refinery plant and the valve actuators of air-conditioning units.