• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.120-131
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• 2009

Most world-leading companies are aware that Environment and Health and Safety Issues are critical to the product quality and sustainable growth of their company. Environment-friendly efforts are seen in almost all aspects of business operations in an advanced nation. The Extended Producer Responsibility(EPR) and EU Directive on Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment(WEEE) attempt to tackle the growing quantity of WEEE by making producers responsible for the costs of the collection and recycling of their products at the End-of-Life(EOL). To implement the RFID-based integration system for EOL household electric appliances, such as washing machines and refrigerators, we analyzed the process of collecting, recovering, and recycling the EOL products returned from the distribution points. Furthermore, we proposed a soon-to-be process using the RFID-based integration system in the metropolitan recycling center(MRC). This soon-to-be process model is composed of RFID tags, readers, ALEs, applications and several devices. Through the introduction of the RFID-based integration system, we are expecting to see increasing traceability and real-time management for EOL products from customers, and also improvements in valuable reusable materials(VRM) produced from recycling processes.