Development of the evaluation system for automobile remanufacturing

By 2015, the EU directives required the automobile manufacturers to produce a vehicle that contains reusable and / or recoverable parts at least 95% of total weight. In the developed countries, the legislative issue the take – back policy which requires the manufacturers to consider the end – of – life (EOL) of their products at early design stage. The goal of this paper is to propose a framework of development methodology that focuses on integrated design for remanufacturing evaluation system. This system supports the automobile product design and development at the early design phase. The proposed method is divided into two phases. The first phase aims to identify the suitable EOL process. The second phase aims to verify the most economical EOL process. The proposed method incorporates the Case base Reasoning [CBR] into the remanufacturing techniques. It is expected that the proposed method can provide the EOL with decision support during designing the automobile parts at the early design stage

A computer-based product classification and component detection for demanufacturing processes

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 24(10), 900-914, 2011 [copyright Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/0951192X.2011.579169.The aim of this paper is to propose a novel computer-based product classification, component detection and tracking for demanufacturing and disassembly process. This is achieved by introducing a series of automated and sequential product scanning, component identification, image analysis and sorting – leading to the development of a bill of material (BOM). The produced BOM can then be associated with the relevant disassembly/demanufacture proviso. The proposed integrated image sorting and product classification (ISPC) approach can be considered as a step forward in automation of demanufacturing activities. The ISPC model proposed in this paper utilises and builds on the state-of-the-art technology and current body of research in computer-integrated demanufacturing and remanufacturing (CIDR). An appraisal of the latest research material and the factors that inhibit CIDR methods inpractice are presented. A novel solution for the integration of imaging and material identification techniques toovercome some of the existing shortcomings of automated recycling processes is proposed in this paper. The proposed product scanning and component detection ISPC software consists of four distinct models: the repertory database, the search engine, the product-attributes updater and the image sorting and classification algorithm. The software framework that integrates the four components is presented in this paper. Finally, an overall assessment of applying ISPC at various stages of CIDR processes concludes the article.University of Ibadan MacArthur Foundation Gran

Intelligent systems in manufacturing: current developments and future prospects

Global competition and rapidly changing customer requirements are demanding increasing changes in manufacturing environments. Enterprises are required to constantly redesign their products and continuously reconfigure their manufacturing systems. Traditional approaches to manufacturing systems do not fully satisfy this new situation. Many authors have proposed that artificial intelligence will bring the flexibility and efficiency needed by manufacturing systems. This paper is a review of artificial intelligence techniques used in manufacturing systems. The paper first defines the components of a simplified intelligent manufacturing systems (IMS), the different Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to be considered and then shows how these AI techniques are used for the components of IMS

Design for manufacture and sustainability in new product development

Design for manufacture is well recognised by industry and is about optimising design to aid production. Today there is a significant and growing trend of recognising what happens to a product once its user phase has finished. Post-consumer processes are now an important consideration during the ab-initio stages of design. Rather than a focus limited to design for manufacture or (more recently) design for assembly now the pressure is on for post consumer design. Companies need to do this because legislative pressures are increasing and consumers are becoming ever more aware of, and concerned about, environmental issues. End-of-life processing and design for the environment are therefore areas of growing of interest. This conference paper investigates with industry practitioners their experiences regarding for both the environmental and economic advantages of product life-cycle planning. Legislative pressures and consumer awareness are driving businesses to develop sustainable product design strategies (Jones et al, 2001 p. 27). Changes within the law, to protect our environment, cause companies to pay attention as they begin to affect profitability. The first British Standard to address design for end-of-life processing, and therefore support industry, is BS 8887-1. Over 60 UK manufacturing and design companies that had bought BS 8887-1 contributed to this by being interviewed or providing a written response. The research investigated multiple aspects of sustainable design in practice however, in this conference paper the focus is its application within the design process

Optimal and intelligent decision making in sustainable development of electronic products

Increasing global population and consumption are causing declining natural and social systems. Multi-lifecycle engineering and sustainable development address these issues by integrating strategies for economic successes, environmental quality, and social equity. Based on multi-lifecycle engineering and sustainable development concepts, this doctoral dissertation aims to provide decision making approaches to growing a strong industrial economy while maintaining a clean, healthy environment. The research develops a methodology to complete both the disassembly leveling and bin assignment decisions in demanufacturing through balancing the disassembly efforts, value returns, and environmental impacts. The proposed method is successfully implemented into a demanufacturing module of a Multi-LifeCycle Assessment and Analysis tool. The methodology is illustrated by a computer product example. Since products during the use stage may experience very different conditions, their external and internal status can vary significantly. These products, when coming to a demanufacturing facility, are often associated with incomplete/imprecise information, which complicates demanufacturing process decision making. In order to deal with uncertain information, this research proposes Fuzzy Reasoning Petri nets to model and reason knowledge-based systems and successfully applies them to demanufacturing process decision making to obtain the maximal End-of-Life (BOL) value from discarded products. Besides the BOL management of products by means of product/material recovery to decrease environmental impacts, the concepts of design for environment and sustainable development are investigated. Based on Sustainability Target Method, a sensitivity analysis decision-making method is proposed. It provides a company with suggestions to improve its product\u27s sustainability in the most cost-effective manner