This year’s Remanufacturer of the Year (RotY) Awards Ceremony was held during the recent APRA Europe online symposium. Yorien de Ruijter, director of Rematec News, introduced Felix Feuerbach as chair of the jury to announce this year’s winners. Judged by a panel of remanufacturing industry experts including Peter Bartel, Erik Sundin and Tessa Vlaanderen, the awards were given based on a set of criteria through which the following winners are deemed to lead the industry forward.

F2J Reman’s Part recognition Vision system wins two awards

Although business innovation and process optimization often go hand in hand, it is the first time a company wins both awards. The jury commented on awarding both Best Reman Process Optimisation and Best Reman Business Innovation awards to F2J Reman with the following: “F2J Reman’s Part recognition Vision system is tackling the right problem, whereby today many companies are depending with core identification on an internal expert, who’s hard to replace in the case he/she is not able to work for them anymore. F2J Reman decided to embrace novel smart technologies to support business optimisation by attracting a PhD student and using artificial intelligence. This innovative technology, just coming out if the IT- research, is not yet available on larger scale in commercial applications for the remanufacturing industry. A precondition for using AI is to open the mindset in the management to accept and trust in IT, even when decisions of the system can not be re-evaluated by a human in many cases. All-in-all a strong business innovation, clever system and a good way forward making remanufacturing industry more competitive.”

Re:CREATe awarded for their efforts in India’s nacent remanufacturing industry

With Re:CREATe’s vision to be co-creators of a thriving remanufacturing industry in India, the organization has made impact on the jury in the category Best Reman Ambassador. With Re:CREATe’s commitment to being advocates for, and providing tools, resources, guidance and inspiration to the makers, doers, and designers in remanufacturing, they are empowering them to develop and provide remanufactured products and related services that are in harmony with the principles of environmental stewardship. The jury states that “Re:CREATe is a non-profit organisation with focus on India’s nacent remanufacturing industry. This industry is beginning to display signs of it’s future potential, so Re:CREATe’s focus and commitment deserves recognition and support from the global remanufacturing industry with the award for Best Reman Ambassador.”

Adding value to the society and environment: GB Reman takes home the Special Recognition Award

Special times ask for special recognition. GB Remanufacturing, a company that remanufactures components for gas and diesel engines, used their expertise and knowledge to design a vital part for the medical industry when it was most needed. In April this year, normal hospital respirators needed to be converted to pressure controlled respirators. The Original Equipment Manufacturer did not have all the pieces to manufacture the special part, so the medical OEM used the Emergency Use Act, where they allowed other (re)manufacturers to add parts to their product. GB Reman provided this life-saving ventilator part to its local hospital.

The jury praised the way GB Reman took on this project: “A remanufacturer has the core competence to develop “work arounds” for problems and to transform them into industrial, capable processes. This competence is the logical precondition of GB Reman to develop and deliver needed parts for the hospital within the Covid-19 pandemic. In short: GB Reman put their competence to good use in times of need.” The jury proceeds: “The business opportunity for reman is not only to make money, but also to run a sustainable business, valuable for the environment and the society. GB Reman shows precisely this: how remanufacturing companies can be versatile, flexible and switch to other markets swiftly.”