Remanufacturing Technology Transforms Traditional Computer Renovation Approaches

BEIJING, Aug. 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently, Lin Hao, the former Vice President Great China at Dell EMC, has joined Edianyun and took over Edianyun's hardware products and remanufacturing business. Edianyun's vigorous effort on remanufacturing has attracted much attention. People may wonder what is the difference between computer remanufacturing and renovation?

The improved performances and increased personalized elements have accelerated the iteration speed of computers to some extent.

Due to the high costs of office PC maintenance, many companies would rather purchase new computers, and discard computers, instead of wasting time and money on repairing them. The life span of optimized service life of computers has been shortened to around three years.

But where do these discarded devices go?

Renovate the "Short-lived" Devices for Secondary Sale

Generally, a few discarded computers might be left idle or used as emergency backup devices, but most of them are disposed of as electronic waste. Many may wonder what recycled old computers can be used for. As a matter of fact, there is a business behind it.

Recyclers will first categorize the used computers and preferentially select those with above-average quality for further "renovation". This includes doing some simple clean-up work to their inner parts, reinstalling the systems, beautifying the appearance, and then distributing them for sale as second-hand devices. Another way is to dismantle the computers and sell the individual components.

Both methods are essentially resales without technology involved. The brokers only act as preliminary "computer beauticians" profiting from price spread, without considering the improvement of the reutilization value and long-term performance of devices.

Currently, many companies are running recycling businesses in the market. For example, Aihuishou is one of the companies focusing on electronic device recycling. There are also other players like Bear Rental that both "renovate" and "resale" devices.

The refurbishment and resale mode, to some extent, allows for computers to be reused. However, the machines or components has only gone through preliminary processing, and their life span remain unchanged. This is far from the "environmental" purpose asserted by such companies. In the face of national low-carbon initiatives in China, the recycling industry needs to remanufacture devices by utilizing specialized technologies and endow old devices with new life.

Extend the Service Life of Devices by Harnessing Technologies

Currently, some Chinese companies in the industry have already owned mature remanufacturing techniques. They can substantially extend device life span through specialized technologies, and even establish specialized plants for massive remanufacturing production.

According to the latest report, as one of the largest computers remanufacturing companies in China, Edianyun has an average per factory annual capacity of 600,000 PCs. Companies like Edianyun generally possess independent core technology and research and development capabilities and have established high-efficiency and low-cost operation modes through years of experience and technology accumulation. The key factor that distinguishes the remanufacturing process from the traditional "renovation" mode is the application of technologies. Remanufacturing process requires software systems, automatic detection technology, batch hardware inspection capability, and precise remanufacturing procedures that adapt to the whole production process.

To extend the life span of devices, there are many other challenges to overcome. First, each recycled computer requires a highly differentiated process. The comprehensive automatic detection system and production system can precisely locate the defective firmware and automatically match and distribute necessary parts, to reduce the remanufacturing time significantly. After that, the devices will go through a chip-level repairing process. The overall firmware change approach has been changed into partial repairing on the dismantled firmware components, thus reducing the costs exponentially.

The adoption of remanufacturing technologies can not only restore the computer's appearance, performance, and user experiences to levels nearly close to new ones, but also extend the average service life of devices from 3 years to 7-10 years. Therefore, remanufacturing companies should keep focusing on how to improve the efficiency, reduce servicing costs, and achieve scale and mass production.

Environment-friendly Remanufacturing Has a Bright Future

Remanufacturing technology, on the one hand, substantially increases the values of recycled computers; and on the other hand, helps reduce electronic wastes.

Due to the high elimination rate of computers, a large number of devices have not been fully utilized, leading to significant waste and environmental pollution. It will take decades for the environment to recover.

The remanufacturing technology will help extend device life span to 7-10 years on average. This will not only greatly improve the utilization efficiency of devices, but also reduce waste of resources and help protect the environment.

Edianyun, for example, has reduced an average of 50,000 tons of carbon emissions and 668 tons of electronic waste annually, equivalent to planting 2.79 million trees a year. This means the company has helped 39,000 businesses achieve low-carbon work practices, which echoes the low-carbon concept advocacy and policies in China.

Nowadays, the industry requires companies to carry out in-depth remanufacturing to old devices by utilizing proper technologies and to take the computer renovations process to a whole new level. The aim of all this is more ambitious than merely to give a second life to old computers, but to build a low-carbon and recyclable society, thus fully releasing the economic and environmental values of "renovation."

SOURCE Edianyun