Word: auto
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...thing as repairing a broken part, which is often a short-term fix. In reman, once the disassembled bits are cleaned and reassembled, the result is as good as new. It's not a recent concept; Reman's roots go back around 100 years to the advent of the auto industry. And vehicle parts still comprise around 75% of the global market. But the industry is diversifying and picking up steam. "The growth potential for remanufacturing is enormous," says Günther Seliger, an engineer at the Technical University of Berlin. The entire reman industry is too sprawling and amorphous...
...expected to continue expanding by 12-15% a year through 2010. Steven L. Fisher, who heads Caterpillar's reman division, says Europe offers particularly alluring growth opportunities because, unlike in the Americas, its market is highly fragmented, "with no dominant players." Christophe Decaix, manager of the reman program for auto-parts supplier Bosch, agrees: "There is definitely room for consolidation." Indeed, Cat recently acquired two rival operators: Wealdstone Engineering in Rushden, England, and France's Eurenov. Asia, meanwhile, may one day prove to be equally fertile territory, as the concept of remanufacturing is only just catching on there...
...materials saved annually worldwide by remanufacturing is 14 million tons, according to a University of Bayreuth study, or enough to fill 230,000 railroad cars - that's a train 1,860 miles (3,000 km) long. And while current European Union regulations dictate that only 15% of an auto can wind up in a scrapyard, that percentage will drop to 5% in 2015 - a requirement that should boost the industry's growth, since remanufacturers need a steady supply of broken-down goods for the process to work efficiently...
That's a barely disguised dig at the Bush Administration. As soon as California, led by the moderate Republican Schwarzenegger, adopted its new emissions standards in 2004, the auto industry and other opponents filed suit insisting that such orders were the exclusive purview of the federal government. Since then, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has barred California and the other states that have followed its example (including New York) from enforcing the new codes. The states have since petitioned for special waivers - Crist says Florida will join that effort - something the EPA is supposed to rule on this fall...
Business has wised up. Now some auto manufacturers train salespeople to aim their pitches at women, going for the softer sell rather than the hard-nosed, macho wrangling of yesteryear. More than 100 travel companies have started to take women-only trekkers across deserts, up mountains and into volcanoes. Ace Hardware (where the slogan "Home of the Helpful Hardware Man" has been replaced by "Home of the Helpful Hardware Folks") now offers drills that are lighter with easy-grip handles, greenhouses full of flowers, and walls painted in pastels. They also run special seminars for women, who make...