A Method for Estimating the Profitability of a Product Disassembly Operation

Abstract

Disassembly is the process of physically separating the parts in a product. End-of-life product disassembly is slowly growing into a common and worthwhile industrial practice. There are several reasons for this, including, (i) the recovery of valuable and reusable parts or subassemblies, (ii) product separation to facilitate the downstream material recovery process, (iii) the removal of hazardous or toxic materials, (iv) to remanufacture the product for another useful life, and (v) to destroy the proprietary parts or subassemblies. In combination these reasons also help the environmental and ecological detriments associated with product disposal. The process of disassembly tends to be predominantly manual, and the overall economics is still not well understood. In this paper our goal is to introduce a method which will support the “direct disposal?” versus “disassemble?” decision making process. We present a model to compute the disassembly return on investment. This model considers the costs associated with product sortation into disassembly families, disassembly operation costs, and the market value of the output streams. We use this model to generate both a threshold for the disassembly return on investment, and also the maximum allowable disassembly labor time. The model is constructed from empirical evidence gathered from several industrial disassembly facilities. This model can be used to evaluate new and old designs.