An evaluation system of logistic scenarios for withdrawal in the disposal of waste personal computers with RF-ID tag

Abstract

JAPANAbstract -Recently, the use of personal computers have spread widely and quickly. As a result, a drastic increase of the number of these products being disposed of as waste is expected. Therefore, the technologies for recycling of waste PCs have been developed. For t h e effective use of these technologies, withdrawal systems of PCs have been proposed.From this reason, we must consider t h e logistic scenarios of withdrawal of waste personal computers. A personal computer's life-cycle management system by use of a Radio Frequency Identification (RF-ID) Tag technology have been experimentally developed. By using a n RF-ID Tag, waste computer's information such as its position in the life-cycle and its type can be collected in the management system with a low cost.In this paper, firstly, a PC withdrawal system is modeled. Then, five logistic scenarios of waste PCs are established. They consist of a disposal dealer selection, the use of future waste PC number information, the adjustment of the stock between withdrawal dealers, and t h e transportation timing for disposal dealers. Some of them use t h e information from the life-cycle management system. Each scenario is evaluated by simulation. From these results, the proposal of t h e most cost-effective and lowest environmental load scenario is expected.