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24 SMT007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2023 functionality or performance, but hugely impact the ability to disassemble and recycle more efficiently. With the right approach, the circular economy is not just about material recovery, but includes the element of design for recycling. There is, however, a significant and funda- mental difference between manufacturing and recycling. Manufacturing is commercially viable due to its scale, even when considering the increasing variability of products and shortened factory-to-customer lead times. There is a full set of documentation based on the CAD design data with which to manufacture products. Manufacturing engineering, featuring the automated creation of product-specific work instructions, as well as program data for automated processes, should now be completely automated for most manufacturing companies. Manufacturing is, therefore, a known, con- tinuous, efficient, and repeated process. In the recycling industr y, by contrast, products become end-of-life randomly. Almost every unit presented for processing is com- pletely different from the one before. There is no provision for access to any of the details of assembly or disassembly methods, or of the material content—including embedded chemicals, and locations of key materials and components—all of which are key elements needed from the design and manufacturing data. As we have seen with the massive increase in software automation for MES in recent years, we are now on the precipice of "RES," meaning recycling execution, rather than manufacturing. This is simply MES in reverse gear. Examples already exist in the best MES tools available today, which include RMA/MRO processing, where products from the field are repaired, overhauled, upgraded, or remanufactured into other products. While this is currently happening only at the high end of the market, there are lessons to be learned by the industry. Due to the random nature of recycling, and with the need for product data from many OEMs to be available to recycling companies, there is an element of security and risk of IP leakage. However, hardware and software technologies exist that uniquely identify products, and allow access to only the needed data of their design and manufacturing in a way that does not reveal intellectual property and other private information. These technologies are being utilized and developed for the supply-network applications supporting manufacturing, but really, the greatest need will be in the recycling industry, which should be included in such projects. After all, materials and elements from recycling are then intended to go back into the supply network. Revolutions in recycling do not happen overnight, but we all need to be headed in the same, logical direction, rather than just hoping that Bamm-Bamm will continue to be the answer. Let's hope that, instead, MES technology for disassembly will become as important as for manufacturing. It will include automation with Smart hardware and software and create many new high-skill jobs with built-in security and trust, building the future we imagine not only for future generations, but in knowing that we are making the world better. Before it's too late. SMT007 Michael Ford is the senior director of emerging industry strategy for Aegis Software. To read past columns, click here. With the right approach, the circular economy is not just about material recovery, but includes the element of design for recycling.