Revenue and Cannibalization: The Effect of Interchangeable Design Confronted Remanufacturing Processing

Traditional wisdom suggests that the interchangeable design in process system engineering, such as modularity or commonality design, can lower the manufacturing cost and act as a revenue driver. Moreover, the interchangeable design will be efficient in both assembling for new production and disassembling for remanufacturing. As such, interchangeable design confronted remanufacturing processing often involves a balance of revenue from cost drivers and cannibalization effects from remanufacturing. Therefore, this paper studies how the original equipment manufacturers’ (OEMs’) interchangeable design impacts the remanufacturing decisions, as well as the economy and environment. Specifically, we develop two theoretical models, in which an OEM makes a strategic choice relating to design interchangeability when the remanufacturing operations are undertaken by itself (Model O) or outsourced to third-party remanufacturers (Model T). This study finds that, although the optimal level of interchangeability related to the product design in Model T is lower than that in Model O, the optimal quantity of remanufactured products in the latter scenario is always higher. This suggests that remanufacturing outsourcing deters the OEM’s strategic choice on design interchangeability, which may be consistent with the fact that Lexmark makes its products less interchangeable to avoid remanufacturing from third-party remanufacturers (TPRs). Conversely, although the OEM is always less likely to outsource its remanufacturing operations to independent remanufacturers, remanufacturing outsourcing may be more beneficial for the environment, industry, and society. These key insights on the environmental groups or agencies suggest that remanufacturing outsourcing may be more beneficial for the environment, industry, and society and depends on the OEMs’ attitudes towards its profitability loss. Furthermore, to eliminate the above contrasting effects between the OEMs’ profitability and other issues, two possible remedies, including a revenue-sharing contract and subsidy-incentive mechanism, are provided to achieve a “win-win” situation.

Power-to-methanol process: A review of electrolysis, methanol catalysts, kinetics, reactor designs and modelling, process integration, optimisation, and techno-economics

In this paper, the power-to-methanol chain is reviewed from a process system engineering perspective with detailed assessments of major technologies. The evaluation encompasses electrolysis technologies and catalyst developments, kinetics, reactor...

Optimal Design of a Two-Stage Membrane System for Hydrogen Separation in Refining Processes

This paper fits into the process system engineering field by addressing the optimization of a two-stage membrane system for H2 separation in refinery processes. To this end, a nonlinear mathematical programming (NLP) model is developed to simultaneously optimize the size of each membrane stage (membrane area, heat transfer area, and installed power for compressors and vacuum pumps) and operating conditions (flow rates, pressures, temperatures, and compositions) to achieve desired target levels of H2 product purity and H2 recovery at a minimum total annual cost. Optimal configuration and process design are obtained from a model which embeds different operating modes and process configurations. For instance, the following candidate ways to create the driving force across the membrane are embedded: (a) compression of both feed and/or permeate streams, or (b) vacuum application in permeate streams, or (c) a combination of (a) and (b). In addition, the potential selection of an expansion turbine to recover energy from the retentate stream (energy recovery system) is also embedded. For a H2 product purity of 0.90 and H2 recovery of 90%, a minimum total annual cost of 1.764 M$·year−1 was obtained for treating 100 kmol·h−1 with 0.18, 0.16, 0.62, and 0.04 mole fraction of H2, CO, N2, CO2, respectively. The optimal solution selected a combination of compression and vacuum to create the driving force and removed the expansion turbine. Afterwards, this optimal solution was compared in terms of costs, process-unit sizes, and operating conditions to the following two sub-optimal solutions: (i) no vacuum in permeate stream is applied, and (ii) the expansion turbine is included into the process. The comparison showed that the latter (ii) has the highest total annual cost (TAC) value, which is around 7% higher than the former (i) and 24% higher than the found optimal solution. Finally, a sensitivity analysis to investigate the influence of the desired H2 product purity and H2 recovery is presented. Opposite cost-based trade-offs between total membrane area and total electric power were observed with the variations of these two model parameters. This paper contributes a valuable decision-support tool in the process system engineering field for designing, simulating, and optimizing membrane-based systems for H2 separation in a particular industrial case; and the presented optimization results provide useful guidelines to assist in selecting the optimal configuration and operating mode.