Simultaneous consideration of assemblability and disassemblability for fastening method selection

Remanufacturing has achieved increased attention in recent years for reprocessing end-of-use (EUO) and end-of-life (EOL) products. Technical feasibility as well as profitability of a remanufacturing process is affected by the assemblability and disassemblablity of products. Selection of fastening methods during the design stage affects not only product assemblability but also the disassemblability of used products for remanufacturing. Fastening methods selected for easier assembly during initial manufacturing may cause difficulties during disassembly for remanufacturing or vice versa. This would in turn have an impact on the cost of assembly and disassembly. Hence, decisions made during early product development regarding fastening method should address assemblability, disassemblability and cost concerns. In previous studies, simultaneous consideration of assemblabilty, disassemblablity and cost factors for fastening method selection was not addressed properly. In this paper, a methodology for fastening method selection is proposed by which all the three factors are simultaneously considered in the selection of fastening methods. In the proposed methodology, the selection problem is formulated as an optimization model with the objective of minimizing the overall assembly and disassembly costs. Genetic algorithm (GA) are employed to solve the model. A case study on the selection of fastening methods for laptop computers is conducted to illustrate the proposed methodology and to evaluate its effectiveness.