Exploring Product Cannibalization and Benefits of Remanufacturing in the Context of a Remanufactured and its Counterpart New Product

Abstract

This research work deals with the investigation of Product Cannibalization in newlineview of Remanufacturing as a business prospect in contemporary manufacturing. newlineIt also explores various benefits and issues related to Remanufacturing, especially newlinein the context of a remanufactured product as well as its counterpart new newlineproduct. newlineFew relevant and important motivating factors that encourage remanufacturers to produce the remanufactured products are obtained with the help of a number of case studies conducted in few manufacturing firms. The results of T-tests and Coefficient of Correlation indicate that the cost saving due to remanufacturing is an important factor. Profit potential, customer demand and availability of cores (i e End of Life products) are some of the important factors that have to be addressed by industries involved in Remanufacturing operations. newlineIn addition to the case studies conducted, using data collected from eBay newlineonline tool and a properly structured questionnaire, some important issues about newlinecustomers willingness to pay towards remanufactured product etc. were newlineexplored and analyzed. The statistical analyzes conducted on primary data newlineindicates that quality, Price saved due to a remanufactured product and newlinewillingness to pay for a remanufactured product on the part of customer are not newlinerelated. newlineProduct cannibalization is a very important issue explored in this research newlineand hence the relationship of WTP, Price and Quality of a product with the newlineproduct cannibalization has been checked by conducting a Chi-Square test. The newlineOnline auction data received through eBay is discrete and hence non parametric newlinetests like Wilcoxon two-sample and Kolmogorov Smirnov two-sample tests were newlineconducted for analysis (Guide and Li, 2010). It has been established that the newlinecustomers willingness to pay (WTP) is less for a remanufactured product as newlinecompared to its new counterpart product. newline