Design for disassembly - a computer aided approach applied to computer hardware

Design for Disassembly and Recycling (DFD) is becoming a more and more important issue and a competitive edge for producers c consumer products. At Fraunhofer-lnstitute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA) a four step methodological approach to DFD has been developped and partially implemented into prototypical software code. Together with a consortium of European companies the methodology is currently beeing applied to a variety of products and a workstation based DFD-tool is being developed to be integrated into the design environment. Parallel development of disassembly and recycling processes including flexible dismantling cells for a variety of products including telephones and computers will bring significant cost savings in the recycling activities that will allow a tremendous reduction of waste deposition.