Towards facilitating circular product life-cycle information flow via remanufacturing

In order to achieve a sustainable development, circular economy approaches and circular material flows are explored in industry. However, circular information flows remain essentially unestablished. The aim of this paper is to: 1) explore categories and types of product life-cycle information available for remanufacturing; 2) identify constraints for efficient product life-cycle information flow via remanufacturing; and 3) propose initiatives to facilitate product life-cycle information flow via remanufacturing. Data was collected through workshops and interviews at five remanufacturing companies. An accumulated Sankey diagram illustrates product life-cycle information flow, losses and bottleneck. Based on the analysis, possible initiatives to facilitate efficient product life-cycle information flow via remanufacturing are presented. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.