Disassembly for Reuse: Implementation in the Malaysian Automotive Industry

Product recovery and waste management techniques are in popular demand due to the increase in awareness on environmentally conscious manufacturing. Once a product, such as an end-of-life vehicle is received at a recovery facility, it is analyzed to determine its recovery option such as recycling, reuse or remanufacturing. Disassembly is considered a key step to remove the desired parts and/or subassemblies. Disassembly is a systematic approach that allows removing a component or a part, or a group of parts or a subassembly from a product (i.e. partial disassembly); or separating a product into all of its parts (i.e. complete disassembly) for a given purpose. This paper presents the result of an initial study on the existing conditions of automotive components reuse and implementation of disassembly in three local automotive component manufacturers in Malaysia. From the study, it can be concluded that performing disassembly in an optimized way can help the local industry enhance recoverability of the end-of-life product