SINGAPORE — Singapore announced on Thursday the establishment of a re-manufacturing research and development center, the first of its kind in Asia.
The Advanced Remanufacturing & Technology Center, modelled after successful centers in the United Kingdom, will be developing technologies for re-manufacturing.
The center will tap on the expertise of the Agency for the Science, Technology and Research and local universities.
It will “help industries realize remanufacturing’s economic and environmental potential through public-private collaborative research and development,” said Raj Thampuran, executive director of the Science and Engineering Research Council at the Agency for the Science, Technology and Research.
The center also represents the way in which high value manufacturing is advancing globally, he said. Member companies can leverage on our spectrum of relevant capabilities, advanced infrastructure and high quality talent, while at the same time contribute to value-added manufacturing activities.
In remanufacturing, recovered parts or products are transformed through disassembly, cleaning, testing and other operations into ” like-new” products which will then be re-introduced to the markets. It can help cut cost and materials.
Remanufactured products are tested and certified to meet technical and safety specifications and are sometimes even sold with warranties comparable to the original.
The process is more efficient than recycling because it conserves the raw material content and retains much of the value added during the manufacturing of the product.
A report by Global Industry Analysts predicts that the global automotive remanufacturing market will reach 104.8 billion U.S. dollars by 2015. In the United States, the remanufacturing industry is worth 53 billion U.S. dollars, employing 480,000 workers.
Six industry leaders such as Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Siemens Industry Software, ABB, FUCHS Lubricants and Carl Zeiss signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the center to do research to bridge technological gaps in re-manufacturing for the aerospace, oil and gas, marine, energy, automotive and engineering industries.
Eight local small and medium enterprises have also joined the center to co-develop technologies.
source: interaksyon.com
