Library of facility models for structural and graphical definition of recycling system simulation considering information flows

Abstract Compared with a variety of Design for Environment (DfE) methods (such as design for reduce, reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling), one of the major characteristics of life cycle design is to consider interrelations among the processes across the life cycle stages. In literature, such interrelations have been viewed from flows of materials, products, and energy. To support design and analysis of product life cycles dealing with these flows, engineering tools such as Material Flow Analysis (MFA) and Life Cycle Simulation (LCS) have been studied by scholars in the field of life cycle engineering. However, related works in the field of life cycle engineering mainly focus on flows of physical objects and they do not sufficiently consider information flows in product life cycles. Therefore, the authors have recently developed a simulation framework to design and analyze interactions among constituents of a system with a variety of resolutions (e.g., a process line, a factory, a life cycle) in terms of flows of information and physical objects. The authors develop a recycling system model to be integrated in a life cycle model on the simulation framework. Especially, structural model elements representing facilities used in specific recycling processes (such as separation, sorting, and crashing) are developed based on investigation of specifications of these facilities in market. The facility models are intended to be used for systematically evaluating recycling systems with various combinations of facilities. This paper presents how these facility models are used to structurally and graphically build a recycling system simulation model based on models of interactions among facilities through a case to develop a recycling system of laptop computers.