Automatic disassembly plans:: Application to the continuous process industries

Design for disassembly has increased in importance mainly because of environmental management and maintenance accessibility concerns. Selection of an optimal disassembly plan is a key problem in the design of many industrial processes, given its influence on final product cost. Disassembly plans in complex industrial environments are studied based on the knowledge of initial separation costs for any couple of components. This paper describes an innovative way of evaluating the separation cost for different components based on the given separation costs. While most previous research was developed for assembly industries (where separation costs are easily calculated), this paper applies a new heuristic procedure to a basic problem in the meat industry.