Determining optimal disassembly and recovery strategies

We present a stochastic dynamic programming algorithm for determining the optimal disassembly and recovery strategy, given the disassembly tree, the process-dependent quality distributions of assemblies, and the quality-dependent recovery options and associated profits for assemblies. This algorithm generalizes the one proposed by Krikke et al. (International Journal of Production Research 1998; 36(1):111–39) in two ways. First, there can be multiple disassembly processes. Second, partial disassembly is allowed. Both generalizations are important for practise.