WIN - International visiting professor Winifred Ijomah

As global environmental challenges intensify and resource constraints become more pressing, the manufacturing sector faces increasing pressure to transition towards more sustainable practices. This drives companies to seek innovative solutions that balance economic performance with environmental and social responsibility. Despite the growing recognition of remanufacturing as a critical strategy for achieving sustainable manufacturing, there remains a significant gap between its potential benefits and the current levels of understanding, implementation, and innovation within the field. The adoption of remanufacturing practices is impeded by various challenges, e.g., technological limitations, economic scalability, regulatory constraints, and societal perceptions. Addressing these barriers is essential to unlocking the full potential of remanufacturing in modern industry. The industry increasingly recognizes remanufacturing as a key enabler of sustainability to conserve raw materials, reduce waste and carbon emissions, and extend the lifecycle of products. Remanufacturing, repairing, restoring, and updating used products to like-new or improved condition preserves environmental resources. The integration of circular economy principles into production systems offers a pathway to align economic development with environmental responsibility. As such, remanufacturing plays a vital role in advancing environmental, economic, and social sustainability, contributing to a greener, more resilient, and equitable industrial future.

The proposed international visiting professor is well renowned in the field of remanufacturing. Prof. Ijomah has longstanding research expertise (>20 years) into remanufacturing both from academia and industry. Her experience includes various industrial sectors e.g., aerospace and automotive and focuses on both mechanical and electromechanical aspects. This unique competence will effectively strengthen University West’s (Högskolan Väst, HV) ambition of advancing research and education in the field. Prof. Ijomah’ s research focuses on product end-of-life, particularly remanufacturing, and spans both product and process design with a view to enhancing the potential for a circular economy. Winifred Ijomah is working as full professor at the Department of Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management (DMEM) at University of Strathclyde, UK. Prof. Ijomah is the founder and the director of The Scottish Institute for Remanufacturing (SIR) a pan-Scotland expertise hub established to spearhead circular economy using product recovery. SIR is well established has a wide network of research groups throughout the UK and across the globe, as well as being part of a worldwide network of remanufacturing centres. Prof. Ijomah has work incorporated in British Standards Institute, (e.g. BS 8887-220:2010- Design for manufacture, assembly, disassembly) and is a member of national (UK) and international committees established to assist industry to meet international environmental legislation. Prof. Ijomah is the founder of, and until April 2021, the Editor-in-Chief of Springer’s Journal of Remanufacturing, the first academic journal in the remanufacturing field. Also, Prof. Ijomah established and heads the University of Strathclyde Sustainability and Remanufacturing Research Group, specialising in holistic, interdisciplinary, practitioner-based research enabling sustainable, circular and netzero manufacturing. Prof. Ijomah initiated and chaired the first International Conference on Remanufacturing (ICoR), a biennial event, typically with an academic audience of 70-90 from ca. 16 countries. ICoR runs in conjunction with ReMaTec, the world's leading remanufacturing exhibition and trade event, attracting 3500 international, mainly industrial, delegates. The fusion of ICoR with ReMaTec facilitates knowledge dissemination across academia, industry, public and policy personnel.