Development of a product information model to support replacement analysis

For sustainability of environment, legislations in EU, USA, Japan and Australia require manufacturers to take back their products at the End of Life (EOL) and recycle them. The concept of 6R (reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, redesign and remanufacture) is very important for this issue, while reuse has the highest energy and material recovery efficiency. In this study, an integrated product information model has been developed in UML to provide necessary information for any future decision making activities in the EOL stage, such as the replacement analysis of any used part or subassembly. This product information model represents not only product structure but its function, behavior, and their associations in different abstract levels to support replacement analysis of an existing component with a new or a used component available to company. This representation schema provides necessary information for any future decision making activities in the EOL stage, such as the replacement or reuse of any part or subassembly. In an analysis of replacement for a faulty component with a used or new component, this model provides all of the associations of the existing artifact with other artifacts and the environment, not just functional and space requirements, and the relevant modification(s) of the associated objects has to be verified.