Exploring the incentives for initiating remanufacturing: experiences from eight European original equipment manufacturers

To sustain prosperous and lucrative business opportunities, companies are required to constantly evolve to remain competitive. The way this strategy emerges depends on how their offerings are positioned in the market. For example, certain companies are focusing on increasing operational efficiency to achieve improved key performance indicators, while others are exploring new ways of operating. In this paper, the latter aspect is targeted in the context of initiating remanufacturing. This research aims to describe the incentives behind initiating remanufacturing. The research was conducted through multiple case studies involving eight original equipment manufacturers that are either initiating or engaging in remanufacturing. The results show that the incentives can be grouped into five categories: (1) business development, (2) access to cores, (3) environmental reasoning, (4) preparing for regulations, and (5) technological development. These categories are conceptualised based on the experiences or visions of the case companies and are related to their short- and long-term expectations of remanufacturing.