Disassembly leveling and lot sizing for multiple product types: a basic model and its extension

We consider two interrelated problems that occurred in disassembly systems: disassembly leveling and lot sizing. Disassembly leveling, one of disassembly process planning decisions, is to determine disassembly structures that specify parts and/or subassemblies to be obtained from disassembling used/end-of-life products, and disassembly lot sizing is the problem of determining the amounts of disassembly operations required to satisfy the demands of their parts and/or subassemblies. Unlike the existing studies, this study considers the two problems at the same time for the objective of minimizing the sum of disassembly setup and operation costs. In particular, we consider a generalized version in which disassembly levels may be different even for products of the same type. Two types of the problem are considered in this study. The first one is the basic problem without parts commonality, i.e., products do not share their parts or subassemblies, for which a polynomial time optimal algorithm is suggested after developing a mathematical programming model. The second one is an extended problem with parts commonality. After developing another mathematical programming model for the extension, we prove that it is NP hard. Then, a heuristic algorithm is suggested together with its computational results.