Disassembly Line Balancing of Electronic Waste Considering the Degree of Task Correlation

Abstract

With growing concerns about the depletion of rare-earth elements, managing End-of-Life products has become a key sustainability initiative in the supply chains of global corporations. Recycling, the process of dismantling, separating, and recovery of components and raw materials from wastes, is technologically challenging and should be planned in such a way as to ensure operational efficiency as well as safety. This study explores the Disassembly Line Balancing Problem with Correlated Tasks (DLBP-CT), which is prevalent in the recycling of the Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). For this purpose, an original Integer Nonlinear Programming (INLP) model is proposed to find the optimal configuration for the disassembly lines. Given the NP-hard nature of this problem, the Adaptive Genetic Algorithm (AGA) is developed to solve the problem, minimizing the number of workstations and maximizing the relationship between the disassembly tasks. A case example from electronic waste is provided to test the practicality of the developed optimization approach. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to explore the impact of parameter changes in the optimization outcomes. Results are supportive of the applicability of the developed approach and show that it can serve as a strong decision aid tool when selecting the best disassembly process, workstations, and task assignments.