Journal of Remanufacturing (2022) 12:213–225

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13243-021-00108-z

RESEARCH

Challenges of the South African economy to transition

to a circular economy: a case of remanufacturing

Ifije ohiomah1 · Nita Sukdeo1

Received: 17 June 2021 / Accepted: 21 December 2021 /Published online: 4 March 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2022

Abstract
A transition to a circular economy (C.E.) has been hailed globally as a means for sustain-
ing economic growth without compromising the natural ecosystems and non-renewable
resources. Remanufacturing is an example of implementing the circular economy; through
the remanufacturing process, obsolete, broken, and end-of-use products become "a new
condition." Remanufacturing is a viable way to prolong the useful life of an end-of-use
product or its parts. Despite its economic, environmental, and social benefits, remanufac-
turing is not without many challenges related to core (used product or its part) availability,
timing, and quality. This article aims to identify the challenges and barriers of remanufac-
turing that hinder the South African economy from transitioning to a circular economy. A
questionnaire-based survey was conducted to identify the barriers of remanufacturing that
hinder the implementation of the circular economy. The study identified quality concerns,
lack of framework guidelines, lack of government support, and poor customer perception
identified as barriers. The study concluded with recommendations and a conclusion for the
study.

Keywords Circular economy · Remanufacturing · Closed-loop · Sustainability · South

Africa

Introduction

The depletion of natural resources and burdens globally resulting from climate change
have triggered the need to decouple the economic growth from the consumption of natu-
ral resources [26]. This depletion of natural resources has led to the implementation of
stringent laws to halt the fast depletion of natural resources, and the rise of environ-
mental consciousness has forced people globally to adopt sustainable production and
consumption practices. This concept has led to discussion globally on the transition of

* Ifije ohiomah
Ifije93@gmail.com
Nita Sukdeo
nsukdeo@uj.ac.za
1
Department of Quality and Operations Management, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg,
South Africa

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economies from a linear economy to a circular economy. The circular economy (C.E.)
concept provides a new alternative to the linear economy model (take-make-use-dis-
pose). It has gained much attention in academia last decade [48]. One of the primary
goals of a circular economy is to "transform business processes into sustainable, closed-
loop resources systems’ [11]. Another primary aim of circular economy is to keep the
value of a product in use and retain as much embedded material, labour, and energy as
possible [29]. The circular economy concept aims to redesign the industrial practices
to establish more resource-efficient business models that allow reducing, reusing, and
recycling and remanufacturing, refurbishing activities to manage the disposal of prod-
ucts [38].
The circular economy definition is the regenerative framework in which resources,
waste, emission, and energy consumption limitation by closing and narrowing the mate-
rial and energy loops [10]. The current thought towards a circular economy is improved
waste management, which is not entirely consistent with its principle of keeping products
and materials in use [14, 23]. Furthermore, some scholars, such as Luthra et al. [29], think
that the concept of the circular economy is that the resources and value recouped from the
End-of-life (EOL) and End-of-use (EOU) products is mainly remanufacturing in nature.
Remanufacturing guarantees that the quality of remanufactured products is as good as that
of a new product [24]. Following this paradigm, it is crucial to strengthen reverse logistics
for recovery processes like remanufacturing. Used products, also referred to as cores, are
collected, selected and reprocessed, to recover their remaining value after each life cycle.
Thus maintaining them for further use has led remanufacturing to emerge as one of the
closed-loop supply chain approaches for the circular economy where EOL and EOU prod-
ucts are returned to the original position or better condition.
In remanufacturing, the used product experiences a progression of steps such as disas-
sembly, sorting and cleaning, scanning, refurbishment or substitution, reassembly, and test-
ing for quality before its introduction to the market. Remanufacturing offers potential ben-
efits in the environmental, social, and economic dimensions by elongating the life cycle of
the used products [8, 21, 35]. Environmental benefits include reducing carbon footprint and
energy and material consumption [27, 52]. For instance, remanufactured products consume
85% less energy than the energy consumed for manufacturing the same quantity of new
products [17]. Furthermore, additional benefits are, for instance, the remanufacturing of
engine results in reducing 565 kg CO2and 55 kg of steel [59]. One can remanufacture 7–11
units more with the same amount of energy and material consumed in manufacturing [43].
Further, remanufacturing generates benefits to society by employing both nonskilled and
experienced labour and creates economic benefits due to the lower price of remanufactured
products. By and large, the remanufactured items are sold at an expense as low as 60% of
the cost of new items [37].
The practices of remanufacturing observed in various sectors like automobile, aero-
space, electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), medical equipment, machinery [8]
have been on the increase. The USA is the biggest remanufacturer on the planet, which
delivering remanufactured products amounting to $43 billion and supports 180,000 jobs.
Germany, UK, Netherlands, and France are the biggest remanufacturers in Europe [47].
Companies like H.P., Xerox, Caterpillar, BMW, Canon, G.E., Volvo, amongst others, are
involved successfully in the remanufacturing business and generating revenues [38]. Nev-
ertheless, developing states like India, Brazil, and China are attempting to effectively com-
mence remanufacturing activities [14]. Some of the studies in the existing literature exam-
ined the barriers in remanufacturing [6, 38, 54] countries do not know or are most, not
aware of remanufacturing.

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Journal of Remanufacturing (2022) 12:213–225 215

Furthermore, it is often in the nascent stage for developing countries that are practic-
ing remanufacturing, as seen in India, where it has only made marginal growth in the
last one and a half decades. In South Africa, sustainability talks are not much action in
terms of legislation to back it up, and subsequently, this has led to this research. In order
to achieve circular economy through remanufacturing, and the fact that remanufacturing
is at a nascent stage or non-existent in South Africa. This study seeks to study the South
African context since remanufacturing is at a very nascent stage, and the barriers faced
by developing countries may be different from those experienced by remanufacturers in
developed countries. Hence to fill, these gaps this study explicitly analysed barriers to
remanufacturing that challenges the transition from linear to the circular economy. It is
the opinion of the researcher that this study is relevant for a developing economy like
South Africa.
The remainder of this study is structured as follows: brief literature review, method-
ology, presentation, discussion of findings, and recommendations of policies to eradi-
cate barriers, and lastly, the study concluded with contributions and limitations.

Literature review

Remanufacturing and circular economy

The idea of C.E. has seen considerable interest from policymakers, academia, and indus-
try, who have identified with an increasing desire to attain a sustainable society [24].
Moreover, the circular economy has likewise turned into a required field of scholarly
research with a high increment in the number of articles and journals covering this point
amid the most recent decade. Stahel and Reday [43] were the pioneers who presented
specific highlights of the circular economy with attention to waste prevention, employ-
ment generation, and practical resource utilization in the industrial economy. Pearce and
Turner [36] portrayed the term circular economy in connection to sustainability in the
economic system. Further, articles expounded on circular economy necessities [12], its
extension and levels [45], contrasted it with the direct economy or clarified its related
ideas [13, 32]. Recently, Reike et al. [38] and Geissdoerfer et al. [12] illustrated the
various perspectives concerning the circular economy and discussed the relationship
between sustainability and the circular economy.
This framework is an option for the "manufacture-utilise throw" method, followed in
numerous industries. The circular economy aims to be accomplished through enduring
design, reuse, repair, refurbishing, recycling, and remanufacturing [38]. However, Jabbour
et al. [20] stated that recycling might not be a sustainable approach due to the destruc-
tion of value incorporated amid the production of new items. However, remanufacturing
guarantees that the quality of remanufactured products is as good as that of new products.
For that, remanufacturing is emerging as one of the closed-loop supply chain (CLSC)
approaches for the circular economy where EOL and EOU products are returned to the
original position or even in the better condition [42]. Remanufacturing is a new research
field of circular economy and renewable business; remanufacturing has attracted academic
scholars and practitioners of firms. In recent years, a growing number of papers related
to remanufacturing have been published. Remanufacturing is currently the circular model
approach which provides the latest feature and warranty to the products.

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Barriers to remanufacturing

In this section, the barriers addressed are in the context of developing countries. Most of
the research is in the Chinese and Indian context and Africa, in Nigeria. To the best of the
researcher’s knowledge, there has been little or no research in the south African context.
Xia et al. [59] studied the causal relationships among internal barriers faced by Chi-
nese automotive remanufacturers and found that lack of funds for research in new tech-
nologies is the most highly influencing barrier faced by industries. Other significant bar-
riers were low profit from remanufacturing due to high value-added tax and insufficient
recycled used engines due to unorganized recycling.
In the Greek context, Kapetanopoulou and Tagaras reported the following barri-
ers to product recovery in the Greek manufacturing industry: inconsistency with com-
pany’s operations, economically unjustifiable investment, and complication of firm’s
operations. In the Malaysian context, Shaharudin et al. [39] found financial (shortage
of funds, high cost) and lack of human resources as the significant barriers that hinder
product recovery among manufacturers in Malaysia. The study by Wei et al. [56] in the
Chinese remanufacturing industry identified significant barriers, customer recognition,
legislation restrictions, and lack of sales channels. Furthermore, the respondents sur-
veyed added that they had a low level of optimism on eradicating barriers such as core
volume and the quality of the core. Xiang and Ming reported an imperfect legal system,
few small remanufacturers and backward remanufacturing technologies, consumption
attitude of consumers, and incomplete recycling systems as the significant barriers to
remanufacturing the Chinese manufacturing industry.
Zhu et al. [62] recognized barriers in a truck engine remanufacturer in China from
a remanufacturing supply chain perspective. The results discovered a lack of strong
financial support for remanufacturing technologies/equipment updates and innovation as
crucial implementation barriers. Lack of quality standards of remanufactured products,
adequate availability of used truck engines, and lack of information and support for
the quality guarantee of remanufactured engines reported being other significant barri-
ers. Furthermore, studies by Zhang et al. [61] in the remanufacturing industry in China
revealed that lack of technologies, customer acceptance, restrictive policies, amongst
many others, were found to be some of the barriers to remanufacturing.
Matsumoto et al. [30, 31] found that effective collection of used products, devel-
opment of effective remanufacturing processes, lack of incentives to remanufacturers,
customer recognitions are highlighted as significant barriers remanufacturing. Rick
LeBlanc found consumer perception and attitude towards remanufactured products and
unsupportive legislation as barriers to remanufacturing.
Remanufacturing is a flourishing product recovery technique in many countries
like the USA and Europe. It is becoming more popular due to inherent economic and
environmental advantages over other alternative recovery techniques. "This, unfortu-
nately, is presently not the case in most developing economies like South Africa. The
co-operation from the Original Equipment Manufacturers’ in initiating remanufacturing
activities in the developing countries is essential”. Choudhary et al. [6] looked at the
roadblocks of implementing remanufacturing in India. They highlighted nine key chal-
lenging issues: no specific market, few customers, negative user perception, the mindset
of customer is not like the west, low expertise, uncertainty in the timing, number, and
quality of returns, reverse logistics cost, and the low adequacy of remanufactured prod-
uct due to unawareness of its quality and price”.

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Countries such as Brazil, China, and Japan have placed prohibitions on the imports of
used/refurbished/remanufactured medical equipment. Despite such prohibitions, in the advent
these countries allow refurbished imports, it has been noted that in instances that hospitals
are often reluctant to buy these refurbished products. Thus raising concerns about the qual-
ity and usability of refurbished products making it difficult for remanufactured goods to go
mainstream. Furthermore, concerns over the quality and usability of remanufactured goods
is for example the cartridge remanufacturing industry sector in India. The industry is known
to be unorganized, and it is often lined by refillers who use inferior inks and remanufacturing
methods. Many OEM suppliers like Canon and H.P. have used this to counteract and claim
that non-OEM cartridges can cause damage to their printers [49].
Countries like India do not allow remanufactured products made with cores from other
counties to enter their domestic market. However, it allows remanufacturing using cores
sourced domestically and import for remanufacturing activities and later exported [52, 53].
It is noteworthy that trade in remanufactured goods in developing countries such as South
Africa, Brazil, Turkey is limited. International regulatory, monetary, and non-monetary barri-
ers are a significant impediment and bound trade in remanufactured products. Monetary bar-
riers like higher tariffs and fees and non-monetary restrictions reportedly include prohibitive
taxes, registration, complex paperwork requirements, tedious and stringent customs regula-
tions, and certification, leading to national discrimination over imported ones.
Other barrier related issues are lack of shared and globally accepted remanufacturing stand-
ards, this is so because several developing countries where remanufacturing is practised, it is
practised informally and there is no structure in terms of legislation and quality standards. As
a result of these informal activities of remanufacturing, this has led countries to label remanu-
factured associated goods as transfer waste [52, 53, 58].
Lack of remarketing strategies for remanufactured products often results in a lower demand, cou-
pled with customers’ insufficient knowledge about the availability and quality of remanufactured
products [35]. For instance found that the old and outdated EEE goods after the EOL/EOU lie unat-
tended in Indian houses and offices because of a lack of awareness about the management and dis-
posal. Either it is sold to the scrap vendors or discarded with the regular municipal solid waste.
Unlike the European e-waste system where consumers need to pay for the disposal of their
E-waste or return them free of charge to the recycler, consumers in India, however, expect to
receive payment for their e-waste” [55]. After an extensive literature review, this study classi-
fied these into five categories that are quality, government regulations, customer perception,
manufacturer and marketing, and reverse supply chain. This altogether makes remanufacturing
a problematic task in South Africa.
Subramoniam et al. [46] reviewed the literature in the fields of remanufacturing within the
automotive aftermarket industry. It was found by the authors that the OE supplier companies were
making decisions on remanufactured products late in the life cycle of the product thereby resulting
in weakened remanufacturing results [47]. They discovered that a holistic framework for strate-
gic remanufacturing decision making was absent for OE supplier companies, causing negative
impacts upon the long-term profitability and growth of aftermarket remanufactured products.

Methodology

The method chosen for this research was quantitative. The instrument used for this research
was a questionnaire survey. A survey usually begins with the need for information where
no data exist. Surveys collect data from many people at a relatively low cost and efficiently

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measure the many variables [57]. Authors such as [7, 16] have both employed the use
of a survey method to identify specific issues critical in a manufacturability assessment
and providing critical insights into the acquisitions of cores and production planning for
remanufacturing.
A questionnaire was designed based on the knowledge obtained from an extensive liter-
ature review, and the questionnaire was administered using an electronic format in google
forms. A five-point Likert scale is used. Respondents were requested to indicate the sig-
nificance of 1 being strongly disagreed, three being neutral, and five strongly agreeing.
A snowball was used for this study to get respondents for the study, as it was difficult to
determine the exact number of professionals within the set years of experience and practic-
ing remanufacturing or any form of product recovery techniques. This approach has the
potential to significantly increase the sample size of a study [4] since it is based on referral
[18]. Based on the approach adopted, 196 professionals with at least five years of working
experience and currently practising within the manufacturing and remanufacturing indus-
try participated in the survey. The reliability of the questionnaire tested for the Cronbach
alpha test, and an alpha value of 0.845 was derived, implying that the instrument used was
highly reliable as this alpha value was higher than the 0.7 cut-off criteria. Since 24 barriers
were assessed, there is the likelihood of some factors leading to similar underlying effects.
Based on this understanding, Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to reduce
the large groups of factors into a smaller number of underlying grouped factors.
Furthermore, a non-parametric test was carried out to see the vies of different groups.
However, one common issue amongst past studies is that there is no consensus on the sam-
ple size for EFA to be conducted. Tabachnick and Fidell [49] review this issue and suggest
that ‘it is comforting to have at least 300 cases for factor analysis’ (p. 613). However, they
concede that a smaller sample size (e.g., 150 cases) should be sufficient if solutions have
several high loading marker variables (above 0.80). These criteria had several high loading
marker variables.

Findings and discussion

To verify if the dataset is suitable for factor analysis, the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin Measure
of sampling adequacy (KMO) value is 0.723, and Bartlett’s test is significant (p = 0.000).
Therefore, factor analysis is appropriate. EFA was conducted using principal component
analysis as the extraction method with direct oblimin Kaiser normalisation as the rotation
method.
The PCA conducted revealed 5 (five) extractions with eigenvalue of 1 and above, and
their combination accounts for 67.109%, which is above the 50% threshold for an accept-
able extraction as observed by Tabachnick and Fidell [49]. The first principal accounts for
the most significant percentage and has the highest number of variables loading. The vari-
ables loading on this component are fear that remanufactured goods would be sold as new,
reduce the demand for new manufacturing, lack of infrastructure to support remanufactur-
ing, lack of original equipment manufacturers participation, unorganised remanufacturing
sector, fear of transferring intellectual property rights to third part remanufacturers, lack
of predefined standards for remanufacturing, low investment from the manufacturers. This
component is subsequently named “Manufacturer’s barriers." The second principal com-
ponent extracted has the following variables: product not conducive for remanufacturing,

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Journal of Remanufacturing (2022) 12:213–225 219

unforeseen demand fluctuations, limited availability of core for remanufacturing, and lim-
ited availability of EOL products for remanufacturing. Thus, this component is named
"Reverse supply chain barriers." The third component extracted has the following vari-
ables: transboundary pollutions, the threat of counterfeit products, and quality concerns.
Thus, this component is named quality barriers. The fourth principal component extracted
has the following variables: the unwillingness of customers to return products, less aware-
ness of remanufactured goods, and negative end users’ perception.

EFA for the barriers of remanufacturing

Factors Communali-
ties Extraction
1 2 3 4 5

Manufacturers barriers
Fear that remanufactured goods would be 0,819 0,768
sold as new
Obsolesce of equipment’s 0,885 0,769
Reduce new manufacturing demand 0,771 0,728
Lack of infrastructure to support remanu- 0,659 0,683
facturing
Lack of original equipment manufacturers 0,601 0,731
participation
Unorganised remanufacturing sector 0,534 0,475
Fear of transferring intellectual property 0,499 0,603
rights to third party remanufacturers
Lack of remanufacturing strategies from 0,496 0,439
companies
Lack of predefined standards for remanu- 0,482 0,487
facturing
Low investment from the manufacturers 0,417 0,667
Reverse supply chain
Product design not conducive for remanu- 0,883 0,787
facturing
Unforeseen demand fluctuations 0,798 0,694
Limited availability of core for remanufac- 0,52 0,682
turing
Limited availability of End-of-life products 0,451 0,619
for remanufacturing
Lack of Quality
Transboundary pollutions 0,848 0,847
The threat of counterfeit products 0,824 0,729
Quality concerns -0,696 0,78
Poor Customer perception
The unwillingness of customers to return 0,82 0,736
products
Less awareness of remanufactured goods -0,641 0,598
Hostile end user’s perception 0,541 0,58
Restrictive Government regulations
Policies restricting the importation of cores 0,834 0,757
Lack of government subsidy 0,635 0,695

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Factors Communali-
ties Extraction
1 2 3 4 5
No agenda by the government on remanu- 0,503 0,527
facturing
Lack of government support -0,803 0,727
Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin Measure 0,723
Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity X2 1614,516
Df 276
sig 0,000
Cronbach Alpha 0,845

Discussion

EFA revealed five barriers’ components with twenty-three factors that can hinder remanu-
facturing to achieve a circular economy.
Customers believe that remanufactured goods consist of used parts, and remanufactured
goods are not brand new and, in the future, require additional maintenance [34]. The qual-
ity of remanufactured products is a significant concern, as consumers have a reservation
of remanufactured goods due to lack of standardisation, awareness, and availability. This
finding is consistent with the finding of the study, as the EFA analysis. The threat of trans-
border pollution is often a possibility as countries such as India has raised concern at pos-
sible dumping of obsolete and poor-quality products [2]. This finding is consistent with
manufacturers complaining about remanufactured goods are often from obsolete product.
Lack of remarketing strategies for remanufactured products often results in a lower
demand, coupled with customers’ insufficient knowledge about the availability and quality
of remanufactured products [35]. Lack of remarketing strategies for remanufactured prod-
ucts often results in a lower demand, coupled with customers’ insufficient knowledge about
the availability and quality of remanufactured products [35]. This is consistent with the
findings of these studies, as these challenges are often the worries of OEM in Africa and
developing countries as compared to their OEM counterparts in the USA on why they do
not want to be involved with remanufacturing, and often poor customer knowledge has led
to poor perception of customers about remanufactured goods.
Another significant barrier of remanufacturing to achieve a circular economy is for
remanufacturing. There is a lack of framework/guidelines/policies for remanufacturing and
analysis. Furthermore, remanufacturing in South Africa is at a nascent stage and highly
organised in nature, as noted in different developing countries [3]. This finding is consist-
ent with the findings of these studies that the South African remanufacturing industry is
unorganised and, as a result, lacks a standard. Furthermore, findings from India agrees
with the findings of these study, as "At present, there are biased laws and a troublesome
license agreement process in India that restricts the import of remanufactured goods from
any country of origin. Restricting the importation of remanufactured goods is both anti-
environmental and anti-consumer” [2]. These are some of the government’s restrictive
policies that hinder remanufacturing and make it challenging to transition into the circular
economy.

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Further barriers that hinder the transition to circular economy is poor consumer percep-
tion of remanufacturing often labelled such as "Second-hand," ’Poor quality, ’inferior’ and
"refurbished’ [52, 53]. This finding agrees with the findings of this study, whereby poor
consumer perception is a barrier to remanufacturing to achieve a circular economy in South
Africa. Furthermore, concerning remanufacturing in South Africa and other developing
countries, remanufacturing products are unacceptable among customers in developing
markets such as South Africa. Remanufactured goods are considered second-hand/reused
products, and consumers who are well off often purchase a brand new product instead of a
remanufactured good. Product design and ease of disassembling for remanufacturing pur-
poses are concerns in achieving remanufacturing purposes. Furthermore, ease of disassem-
bling has led to environmental concerns, particularly in the early product design phase.
Over decades of neglect, OEM has ignored the significance of product design at the initial
stage of the product and has led to complex designing.

Conclusion and recommendations

This study assessed the barriers that hinder remanufacturing to aid in the transition of
circular economy in developing countries like South Africa—using data gathered from
experts in manufacturing with at least five years of working experience. The study through
EFA has revealed quality concerns, manufacturer’s concerns, reverse supply chain con-
cerns, poor customer perception, restrictive government regulations as the principal bar-
riers to remanufacturing that hinder the transition into a circular economy of developing
countries such as South Africa.
The finding of this study is a pointer to the need for manufacturers to imbibe the design
for the environment concept, as the design is the beginning point that has the most deci-
sive impact on the environment [9, 19]. “However, design for the environment (DfE) is a
promising methodology, which should be considered amongst original equipment manu-
facturers. ‘A good EOL strategy for any product is to choose the alternative that causes
minimal harm to the environment while maximizing the reusability of the products and
components’. Research by Sundin [48] pointed out that DfE is a practical approach for
manufacturers to lessen their impact on the environment and ecosystem. ’Although there is
no explicit law in South Africa that requires environmentally sound design, it will be great
for the government to embark on a build awareness program and a policy environment suit-
able for the remanufacturing sector to flourish in South Africa.
Design for remanufacturing and reverse supply chain strategy are several factors for
achieving the goal of circular economy through remanufacturing. This implies that reman-
ufacturing can be successful if the products produced are designed for remanufacturing. A
practical collection strategy must be formulated towards the return of used products. More-
over, remanufactured products ought to be promoted among the consumers to effectively
adopt the circular business model by the manufacturers. Government guidelines assume
a vital job in meeting the objectives of the circular economy and sustainable society. The
circular economy concept is flourishing because of its competency in providing environ-
mentally friendly solutions required for the sustainable development of a country [41].
Moreover, circular supply chain concepts help organizations efficiently use resources and
increase value to society. Remanufacturing is one of the critical strategies that can reach
the objectives of the circular economy [20].

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This research helps policymakers, practitioners, and industry specialists identify and evalu-
ate the barriers related to remanufacturing. The results of this paper may extend the help to the
manufacturers of other developing countries in designing the strategic policies for remanu-
facturing activities. From this research, it is observed that the impact of design for remanu-
facturing is vital to enable remanufacturing to flourish. For that, remanufacturing firms must
integrate remanufacturing in the design process. It will improve the production planning and
control during the remanufacturing and the quality of the remanufactured product. Eventually,
it will diminish the perception of the low-quality remanufactured product among consumers.
The strategy of the collection of cores is crucial and key to remanufacturing. However, con-
sumers are not aware of collection channels and the benefits of returning the used products.
For that, an organisation can arrange the return of used products by educating and providing
an efficient collection channel. In addition, there is always a hesitation by consumers in buying
the remanufactured items due to the lack of awareness, feeling of disgust, and perceived low
quality [1, 5]. Remanufacturers can work hand in hand with the government in enlightening
the consumers about remanufactured products. The return of used products and the purchase
of remanufactured products is inevitable for the circular business model [17]. The findings
from this study also indicate that government regulations can help drive or inhibit remanufac-
turing. The government can encourage remanufacturing in developing nations by providing
incentives such as one-time subsidies, tax rebates, and relaxation in land allotment policy [21].
Finally, this research puts forward suggestions that will help to prevail against the barriers
of remanufacturing. The following is as follows: Firms must integrate remanufacturing issues
during their product design phase for effective and efficient remanufacturing. Products must
consider the design for disassembly and design for up-gradation into their product develop-
ment process. It might not only ease the process of remanufacturing but also generate more
profit for the organization.
Manufacturers must incorporate the IoT concept (IoT) and insert RFID tags and sensors to
retrieve the information across the product life cycle. This information might help develop an
effective collection strategy and react quickly to the uncertainty in the quality and quantity of
return products. Moreover, the manufacturers can implement the concept of a product-service
system to cope with the uncertainty associated with the returned products.
Low cost and like-new quality are the primary motivation for the consumers towards the
purchase of remanufactured products. The manufacturers use advanced technologies such as
3D scanning and additive manufacturing to reduce manufacturing costs and ensure the quality
of used products.
The findings of this study were limited by geographical location. Although Gauteng has
been the economic hub housing most economic activities such as manufacturing, the findings
cannot be generalised for the entire country. Therefore, further studies can be conducted in
other country provinces to get a broader view of the topic.

Data availability The data used for this study will be made available upon reasonable request.

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