Towards Perpetual Innovative Products Through Circular Factories: Integration of Functional Behavior into System Reliability

Circular Factories (CFs) embody a sustainable manufacturing paradigm that emphasizes resource efficiency, waste minimization, and perpetual innovative products. A critical challenge within CFs is accurately predicting the functional behavior, which is essential for making informed reprocessing decisions. The integration of functional behavior into system reliability as compatible models in CF is currently still unclear. This paper describes a framework that integrates the functional behavior into system reliability, that aims to close this research gap. The framework is demonstrated through a theoretical case study on an angle grinder and a cordless drill. The metrics of Multi-State System (MSS) Reliability is going to be used to describe the continuous degradation of the system. To achieve this, a Performance Rate is employed, which uses the measured values of the functional behavior as input variables. By representing the functional behavior through the Performance Rate, the functional model can perform a state estimation. The reliability model then utilizes this metric for state prediction. While the study highlights significant potential benefits, it also uncovers several limitations that need to be addressed through further research. The theoretical case studies implies that empirical data is lacking. To validate the proposed framework and models, it is essential to collect and analyze real-world data. However, the described framework is able to integrate functional behavior into system reliability and therefore contributes to perpetual innovative products in the CF.