Gruppo FOS: A Repair Centre to curb electronic waste
Organisation or Company
Type of organisation or company
Country
Italy
City
Caserta
Key Area
Project elaborated in partnership
No
Scope
Ongoing
Yes
Type of funding
Description
Reliance on electronics comes with steep environmental costs, from mining minerals to disposal of end-of-life devices. As the use of electronic products has grown, their average lifespan becomes shorter. This in turn results in an increased volume of discarded and obsolete electronic devices. Consumers cannot resist buying faster products, thus contributing to the growing global waste challenge. In 2019 alone, people discarded 53 million metric tons of electronic waste.
Gruppo FOS in Caserta (Italy) provides a T&G (technology and groupware) Repair Centre and Swap & Repair services for electronic devices, thus contributing to the circular economy concept.
The repair services supply chain includes the following:
- Test bench design
- Purchasing department
- Assembly and repair
- SWAP & fast repair
- Monitoring restored components
- Packaging & shipping
Main activity field
Identified challenge (s)
Main results
- The T&G Repair Centre has a 1 000 m2 supply warehouse located in Caserta.
- The Centre deals with the commissioning and decommissioning of complete equipment, on-site intervention by specialised technicians and 3D printers for plastic items.
- It is sized to handle about 12 000 repairs per year, with peaks of 60 repairs per day.
- Its supply chain process is supported by an ad hoc software platform capable of managing all activities from the entry of materials to shipment.
- The platform monitors processes and activities, thus ensuring traceability of materials, measurement of crossing times, processes carried out, generation of test reports, high quality performance and compliance with delivery times.