ON A MEDIUM-TERM PRODUCT RECOVERY AND DISPOSAL STRATEGY FOR DURABLE ASSEMBLY PRODUCTS

The introduction of extended producer responsibility makes original eq uipment manufacturers formally responsible for take-back, recovery and reuse of discarded products. One of their key problems is to determin e to what extent return products must be disassembled and which recove ry and disposal options should be applied. On a tactical management le vel, this involves anticipating problems like meeting (legislative) re covery targets, limited secondary end markets and investments in recyc ling infrastructure. In this paper, a comprehensive model is presented , which determines an optimal product recovery and disposal strategy f or one product type. The objective function takes into account technic al, commercial and ecological criteria as well as uncertainty on these criteria due to lack of information, in particular regarding the qual ity level. Optimization is done on overall net profit and occurs using a two-phased DP-algorithm. The applicability of the model is shown in a case study.