A novel architecture to facilitate disassembly and reuse of electronic components and sub-assemblies

This paper has advanced the proposition that in many electronic products, the partitioning scheme adopted and the interconnection system used to interconnect the sub-assemblies or components are intimately related to the economic benefits, and hence the attractiveness, of reuse of these items. An architecture has been developed in which the residual values of the connectors, components and sub-assemblies are maximised, and opportunities for take-back and reuse of redundant items are greatly enhanced. The system described also offers significant manufacturing cost benefits in terms of ease of assembly, compactness and robustness.