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Cloud-based sustainable management of electrical and electronic equipment from production to end-of-life

Massimo Conti (Department of Information Engineering, Universita Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy)
Simone Orcioni (Department of Information Engineering, Universita Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy)

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management

ISSN: 0265-671X

Article publication date: 7 January 2019

Issue publication date: 21 February 2019

612

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe a system and a database structure for the tracing of the waste of electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) using radio-frequency identification tags.

Design/methodology/approach

The problems related to the management of WEEE and the international directives have been presented and analyzed. The authors propose a traceability system to extend the tracing in the reverse logistics.

Findings

The proposed systems allow a more efficient management of the reuse, repair and recycle phase of the products and components, thus reducing the disposal of the electric and electronic equipment. There are many possible positive impacts of the system. The authors investigate, in particular, the impact of the single component tracing on the disposal cost reduction and on the reliability improvement using reused components.

Research limitations/implications

The system has been tested in the production chain of a company that produces electronic equipment for elevators. Up to now, the results and impact are limited to the company.

Practical implications

The system has been applied in the management of reused components of a specific company. The immediate result was that the system allowed the redesign of the electronic product with a cost reduction and reliability improvement.

Social implications

The authors think that the proposed solution allows a step forward in the reduction of WEEE.

Originality/value

The database structure and the web application, used to track the entire working life of an electronic appliance, are original. Original is also the idea of tracing all the single components of the electronic products.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Ing. Andrea Vesprini and Ing. Andrea Medori of VEGA company for the specifications and data used in the system developed. The work presented in this paper is part of a regional RAEEcovery project supported by EU funding (www.raeecovery.com). The authors would like to thank the students Simone Capecci, Eduardo Cassisi, Giuseppe Granatiero for their work in the setup of the system.

Citation

Conti, M. and Orcioni, S. (2019), "Cloud-based sustainable management of electrical and electronic equipment from production to end-of-life", International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 98-119. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJQRM-02-2018-0055

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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