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Companies can GENERATE revenue from existing products by taking a circular economy perspective on their products, services and operations. 

Published: 14 Apr 2017

Specifically, businesses have demonstrated positive contributions to their bottom line by remanufacturing, refurbishing and turning products into services.

Canon

Since 1992, Canon has been remanufacturing devices with multiple functions. Its corporate ethos to optimize resource efficiency continues to shape Canon’s business strategy today. Canon uses cascading systems-thinking to capture resource value, and to prioritize product remanufacturing, component reuse and recycling.

Canon also offers remanufactured multifunction devices as well as refurbished products.  The company maximizes value from its manufactured capital by collecting used equipment from the market, remanufacturing it and re-selling it with the same high-quality guarantee as original products. In reusing at least 80% of the materials, Canon also reduces product greenhouse gas emissions associated with raw materials, parts and manufacturing by more than 80% compared to a newly manufactured product.

By capturing the components and materials directly, Canon offers customers a high-quality product with and environmental impacts at a competitive price.

Tata Motors

Tata Motors Limited, a USD $42 billion organization, is a leading automobile manufacturer practicing sustainability and the spirit of “giving back to society” as a core philosophy. 

One of the company’s highly successful circular economy initiatives is Tata Prolife, a pioneering after-market product support strategy for Tata Motors' customers. Use of Tata Motors Prolife aggregate ensures original equipment-like-performance of the vehicle even after the first life cycle. Tata Motors’ conducts its reconditioning at Prolife plants in Lucknow and Coimbatore. The ambition is to minimize the product life cycle cost, allowing the company to offer high quality products at a reduced price.

Tata Motors’ Prolife business has a wide variety of reconditioned products, from engine long blocks, gear boxes, turbo chargers and air compressors to electrical components such as starter motors and alternators. Tata prolife business reconditions about 23,000 equivalent engines in a year.

With such positive results, it is not surprising that Tata Motors’ Prolife is expanding into new facilities at Surat and Hyderabad, India.