A multiobjective decision-making approach for modelling and planning economically and environmentally sustainable robotic disassembly for remanufacturing

Adopting initiatives to extend the useful life of products or recovering their components for reuse, remanufacturing or recycling is a key issue in the attempt to protect the environment and minimise the demand for natural resources. To contribute to the performance of automated disassembly practices, this paper presents a multiobjective decision-making approach based on the optimisation of three goals in a robotic disassembly cell framework: enhancing the economic performance of the process, reducing energy consumption and mitigating the environmental impact. Two real-use cases are presented as demonstrators, supported by appropriate, updated information from industry. The design model allowed the authors to obtain the best robotic disassembly sequence plan, the correct disassembly direction, the best recovery option for the disassembled components – reuse, remanufacturing, recycling or disposal – and the most appropriate disassembly tools, finding the optimal or near-optimal solution that best balances the three sustainability goals. An Enhanced Discrete Bees Algorithm with a mutation operator was employed to find the solution for the optimisation. Moreover, a multiobjective Bees Algorithm, a Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II and a Pareto Envelope-based Selection Algorithm II were adopted to solve the multiobjective optimisation problem using different iteration numbers and population sizes. The results provide insights into robotic disassembly processes, encouraging firms to adopt more automated and sustainable remanufacturing strategies.