Abstract
Designers and engineers need better tools and methods to create highly repairable products. Design for disassembly and reassembly is an important product related design feature that can enhance repair. In a highly repairable product, the components that fail most often should be easily accessible for repair or replacement. This paper describes the development of a method to visually map the disassembly of a product, showing different routes towards target components. These components can be those with a high potential failure rate (important for repair), embodied environmental impact (important for recycling) and economic value (relevant for component harvesting), depending on the circular strategy under consideration. The ‘Disassembly Map’ method is set up to guide product design and is aligned with the most recent research and standards on product repairability. The ease of disassembly is assessed on Four main design parameters are considered in this method to assess the ease of disassembly of: disassembly sequence/depth, type of tools, fastener reusability/reversibility, and disassembly time. In contrast to most of the related literature found, the Disassembly Map method is not based on the use of an algorithm for the automatic calculation of optimised disassembly sequences. It asks designers and engineers to analyse each disassembly step using standardized visual elements based on the ease of Disassembly Metric (eDiM) and the Maynard Operation Sequence Technique (MOST). Insights gathered from this analysis and the resulting visualisation can be used in an iterative product development process. The method was developed by analysing seven vacuum cleaners. Its effectiveness was then tested by redesigning one of them, enhancing its repairability.
Highlights
In the EU Circular Economy action plan released in 2020 (European Commission, 2020), the transition towards a Circular Economy is described as necessary to create new sustainable advantages, to protect businesses from future potential resource scarcity, and to boost the economy
Components relevant for repair and upgrade activities are deter mined by their functional importance, frequency of failure, and up grades happening during the average life-span of the product group (Cordella et al, 2019)
The same list of priority parts proposed by Cordella et al (2019) for vacuum cleaners was used in this study for those components with the highest fail ure/functional importance
Summary
In the EU Circular Economy action plan released in 2020 (European Commission, 2020), the transition towards a Circular Economy is described as necessary to create new sustainable advantages, to protect businesses from future potential resource scarcity, and to boost the economy. Many studies have been conducted on the subject of assessing product repairability. These were set up to define standards, protocols and scoring systems that can both help to create a new labelling system and to guide the redesign of more durable consumer products Huisken, Opsomer, Depypere, 2019; Peeters et al, 2018; Vanegas et al, 2016). They all emphasize the importance of the ease of disassembly. We reviewed research into methods that enable the mapping of a product’s architecture and assess the applicability of these methods in the early design stages; these are summarized below
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