Information handling system micro manufacturing center for reuse and recycling factoring repair time
Information handling systems are transported to a selected of plural micro manufacturing centers for harvesting of component modules to reuse in remanufactured information handling systems through an automated process that uses a robotic arm to harvest the component modules and rebuild the information handling systems. Component module health lifecycle information is applied to select components for harvesting. Carbon footprint, energy consumption, costs, any manual labor involved and time criticality are factored to select a geographical location to harvest the component modules and to send the system to subsequent end user locations.
1 . A system for information handling system manufacture, the system comprising:
plural geographically distributed micro manufacturing centers, each micro manufacturing handling center having robotic resources to assemble and disassemble information handling systems and an inventory of new components and reused components harvested from used information handling systems;
plural distributed information handling systems, each having components including a processor that cooperates with a memory to process information and a non-transitory memory, the non-transitory memory storing instructions that when executed on the processor cause tracking of a lifecycle of the components automatically as a background operation that detects and records component use to report as lifecycle information to a network location;
a lifecycle server information handling system having a processor and memory that cooperate to process information and a non-transitory memory to store instructions, the lifecycle server information handling system interfaced through a network with the plural distributed information handling systems to retrieve the component lifecycle information of the plural components included in each of the plural distributed information handling systems; and
a remanufacture server information handling system interfaced with the lifecycle server information handling system, the remanufacture server information handling system having a processor, memory and non-transient memory, the non-transient memory storing instructions that when executed on the processor cause shipment of the plural information handling systems to the plural micro manufacturing centers to repair the plural distributed information handling systems and to harvest the components from the plural distributed information handling systems to reuse at a selected of the plural geographically distributed micro manufacturing centers in remanufactured information handling systems, at least some of the repaired and remanufactured information handling systems including the harvested components, the instructions scheduling repairs and harvesting to maintain a predetermined time in which the repairs are performed by adjusting the location to which to plural information handling systems are shipped based upon the inventory of components at each of the micro manufacturing centers.
2 . The system of claim 1 wherein remanufacture server further schedules harvesting of the components with priority over repairs when an inventory of the components meets a minimum inventory threshold.
3 . The system of claim 1 wherein the remanufacture server selects a micro manufacturing center to repair one or more of the plural distributed information handling systems having a failed first component based upon an inventory at the selected micro manufacturing center of a second harvestable component.
4 . The system of claim 1 further comprising:
a power source server information handling system interfaced through the network and operable to communicate types of energy associated with the plural geographically distributed micro manufacturing centers;
wherein the remanufacture server information handling system further selects the component in part on a carbon footprint.
5 . The system of claim 1 wherein the carbon footprint includes both a transportation carbon footprint associated with transportation of the information handling system and a manufacture carbon footprint associated with operations of the selected micro manufacturing center.
6 . The system of claim 1 wherein the remanufacture server information handling system selects the component based at least in part on a total cost to perform the repair.
7 . The system of claim 6 wherein each of the plural geographically distributed micro manufacturing centers includes at least some robotic tools and some manual labor, the remanufacture server information handling system allocating repair and harvesting to manage the total cost.
8 . The system of claim 1 wherein the component comprises a keyboard having plural keys and a liquid detection sensor, the keyboard lifecycle information including a total number of key presses at the keyboard.
9 . The system of claim 8 wherein the component comprises a speaker, the lifecycle server information handling system tracks vibrations associated with playing of audio by the speaker and liquid detection events detected by the keyboard liquid detection sensor.
10 . The system of claim 8 wherein the component comprises a solid state drive having persistent storage and a temperature sensor, and the life cycle server information handling system tracks temperatures and a liquid detection event associated with the solid state drive.
11 . A method of automated reuse of components used in distributed information handling systems comprising:
distributing plural micro manufacturing centers geographically;
distributing plural information handling systems geographically, each having plural components including a processor, a memory and a non-transitory memory, the non-transitory memory storing instructions that detect use of the component automatically as a background operation to estimate the component lifecycle;
tracking lifecycle information of the components when the components are used in the information handling systems, the tracking at a network location interfaced with the plural information handling systems through a network and communicated automatically from each of the plural information handling systems as component use is detected at each of the plural information handling systems;
receiving repair requests at the network location for one or more of the distributed information handling systems; and
directing from the network location one or more of the plural micro manufacturing centers to repair the plural distributed information handling systems and to harvest the components from the plural distributed information handling systems to reuse at a selected of the plural distributed micro manufacturing centers in remanufactured information handling systems, at least some of the repaired and remanufactured information handling systems including the harvested components, the directing scheduled to maintain a predetermined time in which the repairs are performed based at least in part on an inventory of harvested components used in the repairs.
12 . The method of claim 11 further comprising:
scheduling the harvesting of the components with priority over repairs when an inventory of the components meets a minimum inventory threshold; and
selecting a micro manufacturing center to repair the one or more of the plural distributed information handling systems based upon an inventory of a failed component of the information handling system.
13 . The method of claim 12 further comprising selecting a micro manufacturing center to repair one or more of the plural distributed information handling systems based upon reusable components in the one or more of the plural distributed information handling systems.
14 . The method of claim 11 further comprising:
monitoring energy type in use at each of the plural micro manufacturing centers; and
selecting a micro manufacturing center to repair an information handling system based in part on a carbon footprint.
15 . The method of claim 11 selecting the micro manufacturing center based in part on a carbon footprint of transportation of the information handling system to the micro manufacturing center.
16 . The method of claim 11 wherein the component comprises a keyboard having plural keys and a liquid detection sensor and the lifecycle information comprises a total number of key presses at the keyboard.
17 . The method of claim 16 wherein the component comprises a battery having a BMU, the method further comprising storing a liquid detection event of the keyboard at the BMU.
18 . The method of claim 16 wherein the component comprises a motherboard having a CPU, the method further comprising storing a liquid detection event of the keyboard on a non-transient memory of the motherboard.
19 . The method of claim 11 wherein the component comprises a solid state drive and the lifecycle information includes temperatures sensed at the solid state drive.
20 . The method of claim 11 wherein the component comprises a speaker and the lifecycle information comprises vibrations related to sounds played by the speaker.