Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm-Based Disassembly Sequence Planning

Disassembly sequence planning (DSP) plays an important role in the product life cycle process. It is an important factor that determines quality and cost of the product assembly. Cost in assembly can be reduced by the implementation of generating automatic product assembly and disassembly sequences, and selecting the optimum sequence in product assembly process.The advantages and disadvantages of disassembly sequences not only determine the efficiency and cost, but also affect the efficiency in product assembly, maintenance and recovery phase. In this paper, the relevant domestic assembly/disassembly planning research results and progress are summarized. Ant colony algorithm is suggested to be used in the optimization of the disassembly sequence in the paper, on which the optimized model of disassembly sequence consisting of three factors including the component number, disassembly tools and disassembly direction is built. It also analyzes the optimized modeling methods of disassembly sequence, builds a disassembly matrix, introduces the algorithm framework and put forward the solution procedures for the disassembly sequence optimization with ant colony algorithm to get the effective disassembly sequence of the products. Finally, a case study is presented to validate the proposed method. In the case, ant colony algorithm is applied to DSP respectively, and the results verify the advantages of the ant colony algorithm in solving the ASP problem. At last, the work of this paper is summarized and the future researches are given.