Complications in Disassembly Line Balancing

Disassembly line is, perhaps, the most suitable way for the disassembly of large products or small products in large quantities. In this paper, we address the disassembly line balancing problem (DLBP) and the challenges that come with it. The objective of balancing the disassembly line is to utilize the disassembly line in an optimized fashion while meeting the demand for the parts retrieved from the returned products. Although, the traditional line balancing problem for assembly has been studied for a long time, so far, no one has formally talked about the DLBP. In this work, our primary objective is to address the DLBP related issues. However, we also present a heuristic to demonstrate how several important factors in disassembly can be incorporated into the solution process of a DLBP. An example is considered to illustrate the use of the heuristic.