Demanufacturing is a process where a product after extensive usage, often at the end of its lifespan, is then disassembled or dismantled into its components. Demanufacturing is also commonly referred to as the reverse process of manufacturing and, hence, can next to disassembly or dismantling also include various other processing steps. For example, demanufacturing commonly starts with product manipulation and next a classification step to evaluate the functionality of the product and/or the herein contained components to assess if these are suitable for reuse or are deemed unusable and need to be recycled, so the materials can be used in new products.[1] Demanufacturing was proposed to be used in all industries as a means reduce the environmental footprint while preserving economic viability of the processes involved. This term was first coined by Professor Walter W. Olson and Professor John W. Sutherland in 1993.[2]
In the case of waste electronics demanufacturing involves dismantling them into their components.[3] After a classification and product manipulation step, electronics are typically dismantled into their components either to support the reuse of components (HDDs, RAM, CPUs, etc.) or to facilitate increased precious metal (e.g. Au and Ag of printed wiring boards) and critical metal recovery (e.g. Nd from permanent magnets in HDDs).