Adaptability assessment of automobile repair options in terms of product value, environmental impact, and cost (A case study of automobile engines)

Abstract

Automobile repair options include three types: new, rebuilt, and reused parts. Both rebuilt and reused parts are manufactured from used parts, so environmental impact and cost are lower than new parts. However, rebuilt parts need more manufacturing processes than reused parts for overhaul, so they need more environmental impact and cost than reused parts. Therefore, compared with new, rebuilt, and reused parts, product value is high in order new, rebuilt, and reused parts, but environmental and economic performance are high in inverse order. Hence, it is difficult for automobile users to evaluate which repair option is high adaptability for them over the entire lifecycle of an automobile. Besides, the adaptability may change depending on the difference of user’s intension. This paper proposes adaptability assessment method of automobile repair options in terms of product value, environmental impact, and cost. Product value of automobile parts is assessed by distributing product value of an automobile to each part. Environmental impact is calculated by life cycle assessment method. Cost is calculated by life cycle costing method. Proposed method is applied to the automobile engines as a case study and shows that users who emphasize environmental and economic performance have high adaptability to reused parts, and users who do not emphasize them have high adaptability to rebuilt parts. This paper discusses that automobile recycled parts have higher performance than new parts in terms of product value, environmental impact, and cost.

Keywords

• automobile recycle
• reused parts
• rebuilt parts
• life cycle design
• total performance index