Mechanical Disassembly of End-of-Life Products

Abstract

With growing interest in the recovery of materials and subassemblies from consumer products at the end of their useful life, there is a need to develop decision-making methodologies that determine how to maximize the environmental benefits of end-of-life processing while minimizing recovery costs. Disassembling products is the most common mechanical procedure of current end-of-life treatment methods. Consequently, quantitative design evaluation from the disassembly perspective has received special attention in the research literature. Unfortunately the design of disassembly lines cannot be achieved by simply reversing the order of the mechanical assembly of the products involved. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the similarities and differences of the assembly and disassembly processes through a practical real-world example.