What is Material Metric Discarded (MMD)

This chapter discusses the definitions of environmental design, design for remanufacturing (DfR), as well as a case study to demonstrate the convergent point between these topics. Many products that are currently remanufactured were not designed with this objective, generating a complicated process that requires that the manufacturing engineers develop in a corrective way, modifications in the original design of the products related to its components and the process. The case study analyzes a product that was not originally designed as remanufacturable. The decision was made to develop a reconstruction process that fulfilled the characteristics of remanufacturing. Finally, in applying the DfR, it was possible to expedite the remanufacturing so that material planners do not fear to run out of good parts and have to order the purchase of new product, decrease the use of assembly details that are purchased at a high price, and thus save on the cost of remanufacturing. Analyzing this case and applying DfR implied a savings of 37% compared to the initial process that did not apply this tool.