An integrated approach to selective-disassembly sequence planning

De-manufacturing (DM) is defined as a process to disassemble certain parts or components from a product. The parts or components are selected for recycling, reuse, maintenance or disposal. Selective-disassembly as the disassembly of the selected parts is a key process in DM. Allowing a partial and non-procedural disassembly sequence in DM, selective-disassembly aims to minimize the number of removals regardless of assembly indenture levels. It is necessary for selective-disassembly to have all effective and optimal sequence planning in order to reduce tremendous time and cost involved in product DM. The Wave propagation (WP) method, a dominant approach to selective-disassembly sequence planning, focuses on topological disassemblability of parts. It is inefficient to achieve the aim because of two missed considerations: tool accessibility to a fastener in non-procedural and partial disassembly, and batch removability to directly access a part for separation or replacement. This paper presents an integrated approach to selective-disassembly sequence planning. The two examples presented here demonstrate that the approach is efficient and practical for DM. The implemented approach can efficiently generate a feasible and near-optimal sequence plan for selective-disassembly, with ensuring both batch disassembly of components and tool accessibility to fasteners. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.