Masters' Theses A Study on the Economic Feasibility of Automated Identification Technology on the ELV Management Process
2015.07.29 14:12
| year | 2009 |
|---|---|
| author | Kiheon Nam |
| Keyword | ELV Management Process, Automated Identification Technology, Economic Feasibility, Reusable Parts |
| Abstract | As a depletion of natural resources and a disposal of waste matter became social issues, the responsibility of companies extended to product recovery and disposal. In automotive industry, EU`s regulations are intended to remove lead, cadmium, mercury and other heavy metals from end-of-life vehicles(ELV). By 2015, all auto-makers should have to recover all scrapped cars about 95 percent of the parts. The parts of ELV should be reused because they are usually expensive and contain many pollutant. But there are limited regulations about ELV and low customers´ trust for the reliability of the reusable parts. In this study, we proposed the implementation of the automated identification technologies like bar code technologies and RFID technologies in End-of-life Vehicle Management Process. By implementing the automated identification technologies, customer reliability is increased due to the information tracking. In addition to this, an efficiency of the processes is increased as the processes are automated. And a profit is maximized as the estimation for the salvage value of ELV parts becomes more accurate. We, not only just proposed the solutions, but also conduct a quantitative analysis and a simulation to figure out an economic feasibility of the implementation of the automated identification for the solutions we proposed. We categorized the automated identification technologies into three types : bar code technology, passive RFID technology and active RFID technology. For the implementation of the automated identification technologies, the facility investments and the tag costs are required. As the facility investments and tag attachments are conducted, the reuse rate for the ELV parts is increased, the efficiency of the processes are increased and estimation for a salvage value of ELV parts becomes more accurate. Based on the results of the simulation studies, sales for a reusable parts are increased and the costs for the reusing and disposing are decreased due to the implementation of the automated identification technologies. In addition to this, the customer dissatisfaction costs and opportunity costs are decreased as the estimation for the salvage value of the ELV parts becomes more accurate. We compared 4 types of scenarios : manual, bar code, passive RFID and active RFID. We found that the implementation of the bar code technology and passive RFID technology is more efficient than any other scenarios. In the case of active RFID, the performance of the system is decreased due to the expensive tag costs. We conduct the sensitivity analysis to figure out the effect of each factor that affects on the system performance. Based on results of the sensitivity analysis, we found the fact that the scenario which attempts the implementation of the passive RFID technology is very sensitive to the tag cost. And the reuse rate and the process efficiency should be increased over some levels to get some profits by implementing the automated identification technologies. We believe that the simulation model which we proposed is very helpful for the companies who try to implement the automated identification technologies in their system. The simulation model can be used as a quantitative source for the decision making. Also, this study broadens the study field of the RFID application in the situation that the most of RFID application studies are focused on the supply chain management. |
| c | MS |