Simulation-Based Uncertainty Quantification in End-of-Life Operations for Strategic Development of Urban Mines

Abstract

Strategic development of the life cycle of electric and electrical equipment such as mobile phones and laptop computers is critical for the recycling of precious and rare metals as well as the reuse and remanufacturing of components. The quality of collected products at the end-of-life (EoL) stage is uncertain due to variations in these products regarding the material composition and reusability. Quantification and reduction of such uncertainty is crucial for the appropriate assignment of EoL options such as reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling. The paper models and analyzes the inspection process as well as the process to assign specific EoL options to collected products. An entropy-based indicator is proposed for the quantification of the uncertainty derived from variations in collected products regarding their age. The impact of the sampling rate and accuracy of the inspection process on the number of the occurrences of EoL options is analyzed with life cycle simulation. It found that the simulation result identifies specific time periods, in which the inspection process is meaningful, and that the sampling rate positively correlates the number of the occurrences of reuse and remanufacturing processes.