Disassembly line design with uncertainty

As the average lifecycle of consumer products continues to decrease, discarded products fill up available landfill space with hazardous and/or valuable materials. Since the demand for new solutions to economically deal with such outdated products begun to rise, the disassembly line has emerged as a viable solution to this problem. Although prior research in this subject area has been effective in optimizing the usage and arrangement of resources in the disassembly line, very little effort has been focused on uncertainty management in disassembly line balancing. This paper addresses this problem. A fuzzy coloured Petri net model is proposed to characterize the impact of uncertain factors on disassembly. A heuristic algorithm is then developed to form a balanced disassembly line while considering the uncertainties involved (e.g., human factors and product condition).