Modeling and maintenance of semi-automated disassembly cell by Petri Nets

Disassembling has been shown to be the best technology for recycling of consumer goods. In this paper, it is applied to a semi-automated cell which extracts components from manufactured products. The availability of such a production unit depends on maintenance policies which help to reduce the adverse effects of failure. Maintenance constitutes a competitive tool to be implemented in the design and operation of the disassembly cell in order to increase its dependability and maintainability. A modular approach, based on Petri Nets modules, is used to model the semi-automated disassembly cell including the most useful maintenance policies, such as corrective and preventive maintenance.