Disassembly modeling, planning, and application

The practice of industrial recycling and remanufacturing is growing in importance due to increasing environmental and economic pressures. Industrial recycling and remanufacturing involves product disassembly to retrieve the desired parts and/or subassemblies by separating a product into its constituents. Disassembly modeling and planning is more challenging than assembly because its terminal goal is not necessarily fixed, but may depend on product usage and market demands for used parts and recycled materials. Moreover, disassembly is accompanied by more uncertainty in system structures and component conditions than is assembly. This paper presents recent methods for modeling and process planning in disassembly and the applications to industrial products. The main purpose of this paper is to survey the state of the art of this emerging area to supply important information for future study.