Nor have Lund and his followers yet had much luck in broadening remanufacturing's relatively narrow base. "There's interest," he says, "but nothing substantial has happened." Harry Holzwasser, one of the most ardent and outspoken of remanufacturing's disciples, has encountered similar apathy: His address before the 1984 International Congress and Exposition of the Society of Automotive Engineers, calling for OEMs to consider remanufacturability when designing products, elicited "no favorable response," and a recent letter he sent to Chrysler Corp. chairman Lee Iacocca produced a form letter asking that Holzwasser sign a release before elaborating on his ideas. "I've signed it, and followed up on it," Holzwasser says, "and I hope to hear back from him." He is not, however, holding his breath.
Another staunch disciple of remanufacturing, David W. Duquette, president of United States Machine Tools Inc. in Hartford (see sidebar, page 60), views American indifference with some alarm. Noting that much of the country's machine-tool base needs replacing, and that remanufactured equipment could do the job for half the cost, Duquette told Manufacturing Engineering magazine, "We're facing a crisis. We need to act now. OEMs need to extend their business -- and the industry's capacity -- by getting into remanufacturing. The government needs to act now to develop an assistance program for both remanufacturers and end-users." Duquette made his remarks in 1981: He, like Holzwasser, is still waiting for a response.
How do the proponents explain remanufacturing's so-far limited appeal? Holzwasser, for one, attributes the fact that more industries haven't made use of remanufacturing to "the arrogance of OEMs," who regard it as alien, threatening, and vaguely declasse. "It requires a monumental shift in their traditional way of doing things," he says. "I don't even like to hire people who worked for OEMs. It takes too long to reshape their thinking." He also believes that consumer education is necessary: Consumers "haven't been told about remanufactured items."
In the long run, Holzwasser is enthusiastic about what he regards as the process's virtually untapped potential, and is convinced that other industries, and other nations, will eventually take note of it. "This is no longer a throwaway society," he avers. The current surfeit of oil and the end of the recession may have Americans thinking differently in the short term, but the lessons of the past 20 years were not empty. Having spent the better part of his life watching Arrow grow -- most recently, a 23% increase in sales this year, following a 15% increase last -- he appreciates, as both producer and consumer, the quality and savings that remanufacturing provides. An inveterate car collector, he owns more than 25 classic automobiles, as well as a '78 Lincoln Continental, a BMW, and an AMC Jeep. Several of his cars are still running thanks to Arrow components.
Holzwasser is also toying with the concept of remanufactured automobiles and of joint ventures involving the makers of consumer goods. "We'd be more than happy," he says, "to work with an OEM appliance manufacturer -- we'd trade our mentality and know-how for their expertise." And Japan, he points out, has recently been showing increased interest.
"To be honest with you," he confesses, "I won't let [the Japanese] inside one of my plants; I'm afraid that I'd lose 55 years worth of experience overnight."
Lund, too, has been convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt by his professional observations and personal experience. A life-long tinkerer, he has remanufactured items in his home shop, including one Rube Goldbergian arrangement of remanufactured pieces that he assembled into an automatic bailing system. "There was a time when it looked as though our basement might be flooded," he recalls. "Everyone else in the neighborhood was up all night hand-bailing. But I switched on my system, my wife and I went to bed, and it worked perfectly all night long. Now my wife doesn't complain about all of my junk in the basement." Still eager to spread the gospel, Lund is considering holding a conference of manufacturers and remanufacturers in Puerto Rico.
If that fails to produce the desired surge of interest among U.S. manufacturers, Lund may look for fallow fields a bit farther from these shores. "I'm prepared to think in terms of going someplace else," he says, not at all cryptically.
