The world, and Sweden, must change in to a circular economy in order to meet the climate goals.

That it is so has been described by many reports with all desirable clarity. At the same time, models have been developed for how the transition should take place, they talk about different re-processes.
A few examples are:

Re-pair: fix what is broken

Re-duce: reduce the amount of material in an item

Re-use: reuse the product or subsystems in the product

Re-manufacture: factory refurbish the product

Re-cycle: recycle materials or components

Re-cover: energy recovery

There is a scale of value preservation in the various re-processes. Energy recovery and material recovery are the lowest levels, the others preserve the value in an increasing degree.

Manufacturing companies are central to the transition to a circular economy because they are the ones who use materials. The carrot and the stick are the two basic incentives for a company to change its business model. Both options exist and are used. The carrot is of course the most effective, a company can find profitability in something if it is driven by its own will. The whip, for example in the form of legal requirements, is usually tried to dodge.

Working with one of the re-processes for low-complex products such as aluminum cans is relatively simple and straightforward. Complex, composite products such as an electric car battery or a building are a completely different challenge. For complex products, the value-preserving reprocesses are largely dependent on manual work. We know from experience that there can be problems with manual work, for example:

• Work environment – ​​hazardous or hazardous work tasks
• Quality – uneven quality assessments at inspection
  
• Costs – too much time is required for a work operation

The risk is that these problems mean that intended customers of reprocessed goods do not dare to include them in their flows, or that it becomes too expensive in the short term. Then the carrot disappears and the transition to the circular economy is severely slowed down.

In the linear economy, automation is often the solution to the problems. It can also be the solution in circular re-processes. In linear flows it can be technically very challenging to automate, the circular economy introduces additional challenges:

• The variety flora is increasing, you have to handle products at different times of their life cycle.
  
  
• The information chains are broken, when the user takes over the product, the manufacturer risks losing control.
  
  
• Ignorance of the product, a company that specializes in some re-process has to handle products from different manufacturers, which places high demands on the information chains.
  
  
• Unclear market requirements – what does the customer demand, what is an acceptable level of quality, what can recycled or repaired cost compared to newly manufactured?

Suppliers of automation solutions have an exciting challenge. Those who succeed have a large market potential. The world, and Sweden, need safe, quality-assured and productive re-processes. This creates the carrot for the transition to a circular economy.