Disassembly sequence planning using a fast and effective precedence-based disassembly subset-generation method

Disassembly sequence planning plays a crucial role in the reuse and remanufacturing of end-of-life products. However, it is challenging to obtain optimal disassembly sequences as it is a difficult non-deterministic polynomial-time-hard combinatorial optimisation problem. This study proposes a precedence-based disassembly subset-generation method to solve the disassembly sequence-planning problem. The proposed method first generates disassembly subsets based on disassembly precedence relationships. Subsequently, multiple high-level feasible subsets are generated, and some of them are selected to generate higher level subsets using specially designed operators. After several iterations, different optimal disassembly sequences can be obtained. The principal merit of this method is that high-quality disassembly sequences can be generated in the solution construction process. Numerical experiments were conducted by applying the proposed method to three case studies, and the performance of the proposed method for finding optimal solutions and reducing computational time was evaluated in comparison with state-of-the-art methods. The parameters employed in this method were also analysed to explain the mechanism adopted.