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Ch28-I044963.fm Page 133 Thursday, July 27, 2006 7:12 AM
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Page 133
7:12 AM
Ch28-I044963.fm
133
133
PROPOSAL OF UBIQUITOUS DISASSEMBLY
SYSTEM FOR REALIZING REUSE AND
RECYCLING IN COOPERATIVE
DISTRIBUTED FACILITIES

1
T. Tateno and S. Kondoh 2
'Tokyo Metropolitan University, Graduate School of Mechanical Engineering
1-1 Minami-Ohsawa, Hachioji, Tokyo, 192-0397, Japan
2
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
1-2-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8564, Japan

ABSTRACT

In product recovery (reuse and recycle) processes, transportation costs and the lead-time for reuse can
be reduced by starting recovery operations near the user's site. This study proposes an operation and
information system that is termed a ubiquitous disassembly system, to realize recovery operations in
distributed facilities. First, the requirements for this system are considered, and the system architecture
is proposed. Second, a realization model of the system using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification)
and an agent-based implementation approach is introduced. Finally, a prototype of the ubiquitous
disassembly system is developed, and effects of the prototype developed with RFID and the
agent-based implementation are verified through case studies.

KEYWORDS
Product recovery, Disassembly system, Ubiquitous, RFID, Agent system

INTRODUCTION

Environmental issues have become more and more important recently, and the establishment of a
closed-loop manufacturing system with an effective product recovery process (reuse and recycle) is
urgently required (Thierry, et. al. (1995)). The first operation in the product recovery process is a
disassembly operation. In many cases, return products are collected at a dedicated facility from over a
wide area with high transportation costs, and then disassembled. This causes unnecessary
transportation and a probabilistic lead-time for component reuse, and results in raising the costs and
environmental load of product recovery. To solve this problem, disassembly operations should be
executed in multiple distributed facilities (i.e., carrying out disassembly where products break down).
Figure 1 shows a conceptual image of the logistics reduction. A product returned from users is usually
transported to a dedicated factory and disassembled into its components, then each component is