The growing demand for helathcare products and services is leading to more and more raw material extraction. Transitioning equipment manufacturing away from linear material consumption patterns could prove to be a major innovation engine, much as the renewable energy sector is today, and improve the suboptimal use of healthcare resources. Repair, reuse and refurbishment aim at expanding the lifespan of products and are key elements in making the equipment manufacturing system more circular. These activities reduce the necessity for new product creation, thereby preventing waste volumes and slowing down material flows.

Philips Healthcare's Diamond Select programme offers a range of remanufactured equipment to the healthcare sector. As part of the Philips Diamond Select program, three remanufacturing plants are now operational with one of these is located in Best, the Netherlands, with the other two are located in the USA. The dutch site refurbishes magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), interventional X-ray (iXR), computed tomography (CT) and surgical imaging systems. The products, once refurbished, are sold back into the market with full warranty, at a reduced price, and with a Circular Equipment tag. Philips already started the refurbishment of medical imaging systems in 1989. As a leader in this industry segment today, the new facility in Best and two similar facilities in the US that also refurbish ultrasound and positron-emission tomography (PET) systems, serve a growing global customer base. Establishing the new facility in Best, makes the refurbishment business an integral part of Philips’ global Healthcare R&D and manufacturing location in the Netherlands and allows Philips to optimize the collaboration between its design, production and refurbishment groups.  

Remanufactured systems offer many advantages. They are sold at 60 to 85% of the price with quality assurance and guarantees meeting those of new products. This enables healthcare operators to improve, diversify and differentiate their services cost-effectively in competitive markets. For Philips, remanufacturing opens new sales and lease markets and an opportunity to save up to half of the costs on the upgrade bill of materials. Remanufacturing also grants environmental benefits linked to resource- efficiency, as up to 80% of materials are reused in the process. Finally, since its start in 1990 Philips’ program has become core to the company's business strategy and spurred the creation of jobs with a strong status within the company, due to its role in providing both revenue and impacting the company’s circularity ambitions. In fact, the transition to a circular economy is anticipated to initially be labour intensive. This is because the core pillars behind preserving a material’s maximum value, for as long as possible (reuse, repair, remanufacture and recycling), hinge on processes that typically require more labour than in the linear economy where resources are often wasted and incinerated.