Design for environment - Methology, implementation and industrial experience - Part 1: Computer based disassembly planning and design for recycling

By the increasing environmental regulations, the responsibility of the product's end of life is shifted more and more to the producer. Thus, the planning of an optimal disassembly strategy, the efficient treatment of discarded products, and the consideration of these aspects in the product design phase become more and more important even as an economical factor for the producer. In order to evaluate and optimize products design at the beginning of the life cycle, and in order to show the most efficient treatment of obsolete products, support tools for the determination of the optimal disassembly strategy and the classification of the generated fractions regarding recycling or disposal processes is of major importance. In the following paper, the methodologies and functions of an approach will be presented. Also, the implementation of the approaches in a prototype of software will be shown, which is actually applied as a module in an industrial Design for Environment system for electronic products.