GENERATING A COMPLETE DISASSEMBLY-TO-ORDER PLAN

We introduce techniques used to generate a complete disassembly-to-order (DTO) plan. DTO is a system where a variety of returned products are disassembled to fulfill the demand for specified numbers of components and materials. Complete DTO plan includes the optimal number of take-back products which maximize profit and minimize costs of the DTO system, the number of products to be sent through each disassembly station (non-destructive, destructive and mixed disassembly) including the type of disassembly to be performed (viz., complete or selective) and the optimal disassembly sequence of each product type to help minimize the complexities and the total disassembly time. Techniques implemented to solve the problem are Genetic Algorithm, Linear Physical Programming and refining algorithm. In this paper, we describe how these techniques can be combined to solve for a complete DTO plan. A numerical example is considered to illustrate the methodology.