Hierarchical Analysis of Factors Influencing Acceptance of Remanufactured Medical Devices

Abstract The growth of remanufacturing has seen its application in different industrial sectors including automotive, electronics and medical devices. In medical and healthcare sector, remanufacturing presents an opportunity to equip facilities with functional, safe, affordable and sustainable medical systems. However, there is a lack of understanding of the key factors that influence customers' acceptance of remanufactured medical devices. This study addresses this gap by analysing and ranking key factors that impact customers' decisions to purchase and use remanufactured medical systems using pairwise comparisons obtained from the analytical hierarchical process (AHP) model. The structural decision hierarchy was developed followed by a description of the adopted scale of importance. Thereafter, pairwise comparisons were performed by the expert panel constituted by six medical equipment experts with a total of 194 years’ experience between them. The responses were tested for rationality and consistency, the analysis of the comparisons was performed, and factor weights obtained for each factor. Results obtained ranked product quality as the most critical factor affecting acceptance of remanufactured devices followed by price, warranty, brand equity, available information, added value services and environmental friendliness. Findings from this study highlight the peculiarity of medical devices remanufacturing which gives more attention to product quality in terms of performance and safety. Taken together, these results provide a basis on which medical devices remanufacturers can improve customer acceptance. Before this study, discussions on customer acceptance of remanufactured medical devices were purely anecdotal and this is the first comprehensive investigation of customer factors in medical devices remanufacturing.