During the past about 15 years, medium-sized and especially big companies in several branches have reduced the amount of manufacturing depth and, in this way, the Manufacturing Value Chain. This development was driven by strategic issues in the way of reduced costs and capital investment as well as increased flexibility. On the other hand, the responsibility of companies for their products has increased within that period: To meet the requirements of the new law on liability for products, changes in product design and quality management system have been implemented. Actually, the ecological responsibility of the company will increase: It is to be expected that the circulation economy and waste law passed by the German parliament in 1996 will become obligatory in the same sense at least for the ED member states. To meet this challenge, possibilities and, necessities for extending the Manufacturing Value Chain are described. Finally, some results of a project on refrigerator design for easy disassembling and recycling are presented.
['Heinz Hübner']
Meeting the ecological challenge by value chain enlargement and enrichment