Upscaling of Collaborative Disassembly Lines for Mobile Phones – Economic and Environmental Considerations

To enable advanced mobile phone recycling and circular economy strategies like reuse of mobile phone components, a modular collaborative disassembly machinery demonstrator has been developed. The demonstrator consists of flexible usable dismantling modules, a collaborative robot and a human workspace. The remaining challenge is to scale the demonstrator from the prototype level up to line variants in series applications. This is achieved through simulation of different scenarios where cycle time, workload, economic - as well as environmental aspects are determined. The objective of the study is to define a virtualise disassembly line with blocks and algorithms in order to perform a simulation of different line variants and disassembly scenarios. With this quick evaluation next to the consideration of technical aspects, economic and environmental implications are simulated.