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“The industry needs experts in circular manufacturing”

Published Oct 20, 2021

Hi Farazee Asif, why has the Department of Production Engineering (IIP) started a new master’s course on Circular Manufacturing Systems (CMS) – a course that you are responsible for?

Portrait of Farazee Asif
Farazee Asif, Assistant Professor

“The Circular Economy (CE) is a new paradigm for economic development. With a circular mindset, we can reduce the dependency on natural resources by decoupling economic growth from resource consumption. Right now, the CE is gaining global momentum with major traction in businesses communities, academics, and policies on sustainable development.

Furthermore, in the transition from the linear economy to a CE the manufacturing industry has an important role to play. In the coming days, the Swedish industry is going to need experts who can support them in this transition. When equipped with the CE knowledge and tools, our students can act as a catalyst for this transition. We have more than 12 years of research and development experience in CMS as well as the CMS team at IIP is one of the pioneers in this field. Therefore, launching a new master’s course on CMS is a natural step for us.”

After this course, what will be the main skills that the students have obtained?

“Besides the theoretical knowledge on Circular Manufacturing Systems and its implementation framework, the course participants will get hands-on experience in analyzing the implementation of circular systems in the context of the manufacturing industry. On top of these, as part of a group project, the students will be trained to develop innovative entrepreneurial ideas to facilitate CMS implementation and potentially take the ideas to the start-up phase.”

Interviewer: Anna Gullers

Want to learn more, contact: Farazee Asif , Assistant Professor in Circular Manufacturing Systems.

What you’ll learn at the CMS course

After passing the course, the student will be able to:

  • Account for CMS as an emerging field in study and research
  • Describe the fundamentals of the four pillars of CMS implementation, namely business model, product design, supply chain and information and communication technologies (ICT)
  • Describe the systemic perspective of CMS and develop a systemetic approach to its implementation in the manufacturing industry
  • Describe how businesses can be transformed strategically and be able to develop strategies for a transition from a linear to a circular system