Analysis of product design characteristics for remanufacturing using Fuzzy AHP and Axiomatic Design

Remanufacturing is one such business proposition, which has become quite popular in the present day where environmental issues, reuse, sustainability concepts in product design, end-of-life of products are given due considerations. For an efficient and effective remanufacturing, product design plays a significant role. The objective of this paper is to identify the design criteria of a product that can enhance its remanufacturability and subsequently, using these design criteria a hierarchical model is developed to evaluate the remanufacturability between the product alternatives. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) integrated with fuzzy extent analysis is used to compute the weights of the corresponding design criteria and sub criteria and then Axiomatic Design (AD) approach is used to evaluate the alternatives. This leads to identification of the most suitable design alternative for remanufacturing. Further, the probabilities of satisfying a particular remanufacturability assessment criterion by the product alternatives are also computed. Sensitivity analysis is done to observe the stability of the priority ranking. This study is conducted at a remanufacturing plant situated in the south-western part of India which justifies its practical implication.