New European network to move reman forward

The planned European Remanufacturing Network has now been officially announced. The network represents a number of leading international, academic institutions and industry players who have come together to promote remanufacturing.

With the UK Consultancy CRR as project coordinator, the ERN aims to act as a catalyst for a broad range of services for the reman industries. These include encouraging new businesses to take up remanufacturing, helping existing remanufacturers improve their operations and strengthening the competitiveness of remanufacturers domestically and internationally. A further objective is to create greater awareness of remanufacturing among the general public and among policy makers.

"Remanufacturing is an undervalued part of the industrial landscape and an under-recognised sustainable industry," CRR said in a statement. "Our major competitors, the US and China, already have a common vision and strategy for remanufacturing within their industrial landscape. Therefore, there is a real need for a European-level solution to encourage remanufacturing throughout Europe."

The ERN's founding players are Oakdene Hollins Limited, UK, Technische Universiteit Delft, The Netherlands, Fraunhofer Institute, Germany, Linköping Universitet, Sweden, Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble, France, VTT Technical Research Centre, Finland, the University of Strathclyde, UK and Circle Economy, The Netherlands.

Horizon 2020
Funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 project, ERN intends to encourage remanufacturing business across the continent to investigate and be involved in providing remanufacturing tools, creating sustainable partnerships, undertaking market studies and addressing challenges. For this purpose a steering committee has been established consisting of the following members:

• Professor Nabil Nasr
• Professor Henrique Rozenfeld
• Dr Mitsutaka Matsumoto
• Dr Bin Song
• Dr James Goddin
• Mr Niels Klarenbeek
• Dr Andrew Clifton
• Mr Juha Manninen