Evolutionary sequence planning for selective disassembly in de-manufacturing

Selective disassembly takes apart the selected components from a product and is an important process of de-manufacturing (DM). Selective disassembly aims to minimize the effort required to separate parts selected for separation or replacement. Unlike assembly or disassembly of a product, selective disassembly allows a partial and non-sequential disassembly procedure, regardless of the assembly indenture level. Research has been towards an optimal selective-disassembly plan for the reduction of product life cycle costs or environmental concerns. However, the existing research ignores two important issues in selective disassembly: batch disassembly of components; and tool accessibility to fasteners in a non-procedural and partial disassembly. This paper presents an evolutionary sequence planning for selective disassembly in DM. Two examples presented demonstrate that the evolutionary approach is efficient for DM. The approach generates a feasible and optimal plan for selective disassembly, ensuring both batch disassembly of components and tool accessibility to fasteners.