Disassemblability evaluation and designing for environmentally conscious products

With consumer electronics recycling law also established in Japan, it is increasingly important for Japanese consumer electronics manufacturers to develop environmentally-conscious products based upon recycling and reuse. The author introduce the DFE (design for environment) approach from BDI (Boothroid and Dewhurst Inc., USA), and have started research to develop new products that could well balance their evaluated impact on the environment with their disassembling costs. They calculated environmental impact and disassembling costs by simulating their products under the concepts of DFE. Analyzing the results, they have found key points for design revision and planned future countermeasures. This paper is a report compiled from this work.