Stakeholder considerations in remanufacturability decision-making: findings from a systematic literature review

Remanufacturing is a sustainable product recovery strategy with environmental, economic and social benefits. Remanufacturability assessment, the process of deciding whether or not to remanufacture an end-of-life or end-of-use product, is complex and has a high level of uncertainty. Several tools and methods have been proposed to reduce this complexity without compromising the effectiveness and inclusiveness of the process. However, there is a lack of comprehensive review of the decision factors and how they fulfil the requirements of different stakeholders that are critical to the success of remanufacturing systems. This study fills the gap by performing a systematic literature review of decision factors with the aim of understanding how the requirements of stakeholders have been accounted for in remanufacturability decision-making. Decision factors that have been used to represent the different stakeholders were identified and discussed. Findings revealed the lack of research on including consumer requirements in remanufacturability decision-making. Future research should focus on bridging the gap between consumers and other stakeholders, especially during the remanufacturability decision-making process. The novelty is that this is the first study that comprehensively reviews decision factors in remanufacturability assessment from the perspectives of the different stakeholders and provide insights on the impact of consumer requirements on remanufacturability decision-making.