An object-oriented intelligent disassembly sequence planner for maintenance

This paper presents a prototype object-oriented intelligent disassembly sequence planner for maintenance. A novel disassembly representation scheme known as disassembly constraint graph (DCG) has been proposed and implemented as a prototype system in this work. Using the DCG, all the possible disassembly operations that are needed for the maintenance of certain components or subassemblies can be deduced. Subsequently, a sequence-based optimisation technique, genetic algorithms, is employed to generate near optimal disassembly sequence from all the feasible combination of these disassembly operations. Based on the DCG, an object-oriented intelligent disassembly sequence planner for maintenance has been developed. The prototype system comprises three modules each having a set of objects. Users are able to view the entire disassembly process in accordance to the near optimal sequence generated by the planner via a graphical user interface. Two case studies, which are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the planner, are presented. (C) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.