Process and Facility Planning for Mobile Phone Remanufacturing

Successful remanufacturing of electric and electronic products must meet the challenges of continuously falling prices for new products, short life cycles, disassembly of unfriendly designs and prohibiting costs in high-wage countries. Mobile phones are identified as suitable products for profitable remanufacturing. A generic remanufacturing plan for mobile phones is developed. For the planning of remanufacturing capacities and production programs a linear optimization model is introduced. In order to analyze the performance of the remanufacturing facilities under consideration of uncertainties regarding quantity and conditions of mobile phones, reliability of capacities, processing times, and demand, discrete-event simulation is applied. The simulation model is generated by an algorithm using results from the linear optimization approach. The introduced method allows the continuous adaptation of remanufacturing facilities under quickly changing product, process, and market constraints.