Assembly and disassembly processes in product life cycle perspectives

Industrial companies change the paradigms of business operations from optimisation of manufacturing processes to optimisation of products life cycles in order to activate the value of products, taking into account the potentials of product services in all phases of each product's life. From design to the end of their life capital intensive products, like manufacturing or assembly systems, are linked to a manufacturer network by global communication systems. This network allows special services even in the phases of usage and recycling. For this new paradigm it is necessary to develop strategies, methods and technologies to manage the business processes and the information and knowledge required in all phases of a product's life and to industrialise the processes of design, assembly, usage, service and remanufacturing by disassembly and recycling. It is the objective of this paper to define the processes for management of life cycle with a focus on assembly, service and disassembly of capital intensive products.