Abstract
In product recovery the disassembly process has an important role since it allows for separation and retrieval of desired parts and materials. End-of-life (EOL) products with missing and/or nonfunctional components increase the uncertainty associated with disassembly yield. Sensor-embedded products (SEPs) eliminate a majority of uncertainties involved in EOL management by providing life-cycle information of products. This information includes the content of each product and component conditions, and enables the estimation of remaining useful life of the components. Once the data on the products are captured, it is possible to make optimal EOL decisions without any preliminary disassembly or inspection operations. This paper presents an Advanced Remanufacture-To-Order, Disassembly-To-Order and Refurbishment-To-Order (ARTODTORTO) model with disassembly precedence relationships among components of an air conditioner (AC). It also inspects and analyzes the impact of using smart sensors in End-of-Life products (EOLPs) on system performance. Various experimental design studies are conducted based on orthogonal arrays (OAs). The customers' demands may be satisfied either by purchasing new components, reassembling components from the returned used products, refurbishing products, or remanufacturing used products based on customers' needs. Discrete event simulation models are used to calculate various performance measures under different experimental conditions.
