REVERSE FISHBONE DIAGRAM: A TOOL IN AID OF DESIGN FOR PRODUCT RETIREMENT Kosuke Ishii Burton Lee Department of Mechanical

Engineering Stanford University Stanford, CA December, 1995 Submitted to ASME Design for Manufacturability Committee for Presentation in 1996 ASME Design Technical Conference

ABSTRACT This paper describes a schematic representation of product retirement specification that aids in design for recycling and reuse. In the past decade, graphical representation of assembly process called the assembly fishbone diagram, has effectively assisted engineers to conduct design for assembly (DFA) and process failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA). On the other hand, environmentally conscious manufacturing requires engineers to make advanced planning for product retirement. This study investigates the use of reverse fishbone diagram to model the disassembly and reprocessing sequence of a product at the end of its useful life. An industry provided student project guided us to an initial definition of the reverse fishbone diagram that effectively led the students to analyze the recyclability and make practical redesign suggestions. The diagram is continuously adding more rigorous definitions and promises to be a central tool for evaluation of recyclability in a simultaneous engineering setting.

ASME DFM K. Ishii and B. Lee

1. INTRODUCTION Design for manufacturability (DFM) has proven itself as a key concept in competitive product development (Poli, 1988). DFM has helped many US manufacturers improve product quality, reduce cost, and shorten development cycles (Hinckley and Barkan, 1993). More recently, life-cycle engineering design has emerged as an extension to DFM that covers not only manufacturability, but issues related to the entire product life-cycle (Figure 1). Product modularity is an important DFM issue for electromechanical products such as computers, telecommunication devices, and peripherals. The short technology life-cycle of many of the functions in these products, combined with the customer demand for a wide variety of features, necessitates that product designers optimize the modularity of components and subassemblies for manufacturability and serviceability (Ishii, et al., 1995). Our previous work focused on the methodology of evaluating the manufacturing and service cost of candidate designs (Ishii et al., 1993).
Reuse Raw Material Manufacture Assembly Consumer Service Recycle Disposal Environmental Impact

Figure 1. Product life-cycle The recent push for product recycling adds the issue of environmental impact to the consideration of modularity. There are several perspectives in analyzing a product's impact to the environment. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a broad methodology for identifying environmental burdens that arise from a product (SETAC, 1991; US EPA, 1993) from manufacture to use and eventual disposal. So far, most LCA studies have focused on single material products such as disposable drink containers and diapers. For complex products, LCA is often too time consuming for designers to implement themselves. Allenbys methodology (1993), commonly known as design for environment (DFE), provides a more qualitative evaluation of designs and is more applicable to early stages of design. Product takeback laws in Europe (Beitz, 1993) and the recyclability laws in Japan (Hattori and Inoue, 1992) provide a more focused goal. Many researchers have focused on product retirement (Marks, et al., 1993) and design for recycling. The key is the "simultaneous" planning for post-life use of the product in the early stages of design, i.e., design for product retirement (DFPR; Ishii, 1994).

ASME DFM K. Ishii and B. Lee

We believe the central issue in DFPR is advanced planning for effective disassembly, reuse, and recycling of a product in the early stages of its design. Several researchers have address disassembly issues, evaluation of disassembly difficulty (Amezquita et al, 1995) and particularly the generation of automated disassembly sequence (DeFazio et al, 1990). The challenge here is that product retirement is somewhat difficult from reverse assembly. One never wants to disassemble a product completely into individual components at the end of its useful life. Ideally, one should disassemble as little as possible, and process large clumps for effective reuse or recycling. The optimum product retirement plan depends on various factors such as demand for reuse of subsystems, material compatibility and separation technology of a large clump. Hence, we have focused on tools that help engineers to optimize the product retirement strategy. In particular, engineers could benefit from a graphical representation of disassembly and recycling sequence that would help them qualitatively simulate the product retirement process. Design for assembly (DFA: Boothroyd and Dewhurst, 1983; Sturges and Kilani, 1992; Miyakawa, 1990) has similar need, i.e., a graphical representation of the process sequence appropriate for early stages of design. Ishii and Kmenta (1996) has proposed the use of assembly fishbone diagram as a rough yet powerful tool that encourages engineers to qualitatively simulate the assembly process. The assembly fishbone not only facilitates DFA, but also helps designers conduct process failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) and implement error proofing (Poka Yoke) measures. The graph has been used by several universities in teaching DFA (Otto, 1995). This paper describes the application of the fishbone diagram to advanced planning for product retirement. We call the graph the reverse fishbone diagram. The graph still does not have as rigorous a definition as the assembly fishbone, but has effectively assisted in DFE studies of several industrial products. Our research uses the graph as a central representation in the development of evaluation system for retirement specification of product families and generations (Ishii et al, 1995). We start by describing the original assembly fishbone diagram in section 2. Section 3 summarizes our research approach for design for product retirement. Section 4 is the main body of the paper that describes the reverse fishbone diagram. An industrial example illustrates a full scale reverse fishbone diagram in section 5. Section 6 concludes the paper and outlines future direction of research.

ASME DFM K. Ishii and B. Lee

2. THE ASSEMBLY FISHBONE DIAGRAM One of the most effective ways to enhance product design for ease of assembly is to plan in advance the assembly process. To facilitate this advance planning, the authors encourage designers to use the following diagram to qualitatively "walk through" the assembly process. This procedure forces the designers to identify cost driving assembly tasks and step that may lead to defects. We view this diagram as an essential document in proceeding to the evaluation of assembly difficulties. Ishii and Kmenta (1995) introduced a fishbone style diagram for describing the assembly sequence as an effective means of promoting the advanced planning of assembly process (figure 2). The diagram also promotes DFA by forcing the engineers to identify assembly difficulties and coming up with remedies. In fact, the identification of assembly sequence is the first step in any DFA methodology. One can characterize each assembly step by indicating fixturing needs (the symbol F), reorientation (circular arrow), and insertion directions (straight and rotational arrows). This information directly feeds into the DFA worksheet for computing assembly ratings using the revised Westinghouse methodology (Sturges and Kilani, 1992; Ishii and Kmenta, 1995). The diagram can include other symbols indicating time penalty factors such as need for inspection and testing. We recommend engineers to include at least the fixturing, reorientation, and insertion angle information. The most appropriate set of symbols depends on the type of products and assembly process. Each company may want to define the set of symbols to suit their assembly cost structures and DFA strategy.
Handle Core Cap
Cap

Handle

Tip

Core

Tip

Assembly

Figure 2. Assembly sequence diagram for a mechanical pencil

ASME DFM K. Ishii and B. Lee

The procedure for constructing the assembly fishbone diagram is as follows. 1. Start with the part that other parts attach to (usually fixtured). 2. Parts that attach directly are shown with a slanted arrow. 3. Denote special operations with icons next to arrows. F Fixture Rotation (flip assembly or screwing action) Straight-down attachment Attachment at an angle Attachment from below Attachment from the side Other icons may be defined if necessary. 4. A subassembly consists of a separate tree that attaches to the main assembly. Students in Stanfords graduate DFM curriculum cited the assembly fishbone diagram as the most useful tool introduced in the course. In particular, engineers subscribing the course from industry through TV effectively used the diagram in their projects that lead to substantial product improvement proposals. They indicated that, besides providing data for DFA analysis, the assembly fishbone primed engineers to perform process failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA). FMEA in turn allowed them to analyze the trade off between part count and component complexity, and further, implement error proofing (Poka yoke) ideas. In short, the construction of the assembly fishbone leads to the qualitatively simulation of the manufacturing process while in the early stages of product layout design. Figure 3 shows a full assembly fishbone of an IBM Proprinter. Following this development at Stanford, Otto (1995) introduced the assembly fishbone diagram in his DFM class at MIT with favorable results. Most manufacturing companies have some form of documenting their assembly sequence. However, assembly system design is the responsibility of the manufacturing engineer who specifies the process after the design is complete. Thus, most existing assembly documentation methods (flowchart, process sequence list, etc.) are too detailed for layout stages of design. One can view our assembly fishbone as a simplified version of the detailed assembly sequence specification. While simplifying, we kept the essential attributes of the process that impacts the assembly time and defect rates. As mentioned before, the symbol sets and the level of detail depend on the type of products and manufacturing process. The most important issue is that the designers should be able to construct the graph at the early stages of design with limited information. The key is to encourage the product development team to walk through the actual assembly steps early, so that they can identify cost driving factors such as unnecessary fixtures and complex parts requiring complicated assembly procedure.

ASME DFM K. Ishii and B. Lee

Base F

PC Board Power Supply Paper Tray Left Carriage Subassembly

Left Carriage F

Drive Gear 1 Drive Gear 2 Motor

Drive Roller Right Carriage Frame Platten Paper Guide Tension Shaft Drive Screw and Motor Eccentric Shaft and Print Head Tail Shaft Ribbon Drive Gear 1 Ribbon Drive Gear 2 Tractor Drive Ass'y Roller Guide Subassembly Paper Width Adjuster (2) Keypad Ribbon Hood Knob Cover Printer Assembly Roller Shaft

Roller

Figure 3. Assembly fishbone of an IBM Proprinter

ASME DFM K. Ishii and B. Lee

3. ADVANCED PLANNING FOR PRODUCT RETIREMENT 3.1 Strategy for Product Retirement Planning Our previous work produced a methodology to evaluate layout designs for manufacturing and life-cycle serviceability (Ishii et al, 1992). The method uses a graph called the Linker to represent the layout designs (Figure 4). The Linker uses icons to represent components and subassemblies, and links to describe various relationships between icons. These relationships geometrical and topological characteristics that are pertinent to life-cycle evaluation. The icons and links connect to object oriented product data, such as materials and other geometrical characteristics of the components. Marks et al (1993) modified the Linker to support design for product retirement, DFPR, by introducing clumping of components. A "clump" is a collection of components that share a common characteristic based upon the designer's postlife intent: reuse, primary or secondary recycling (depending on the purity of recovered materials), incineration and energy recovery, or land filling. Marks (1993) and Ishii (1995) modified the Linker allowing the users to define product retirement clumps, then estimate the disassembly and reprocessing costs of the product.
hot water tube e ng a ge

RECYCLE
a ttach
upper h ousing lid
ru bber tubes l ower housing

a ttach en g a ge
s cre w

N odes - com ponent - suba ssembly - fastener - process Links - co ver - attac h - attach & cover - engage - supports

co ver
en ga ge a ttach

n ut

attach & cover

base cover hot plate assy

screw

RECYCLE

su pp o rt s

REUSE
carafe assy

Figure 4. LINKER Structural Representation For a given system, as the number of individual clumps increases, the disassembly costs rise, and the reprocessing costs fall. Large, complex clumps, while easily removed from the system, require more complex reprocessing techniques. A larger number of simple, homogeneous clumps may require more time to disassemble, but are simpler to reprocess. If the results of the analysis fail to meet expectations, the designer can examine two options: 1)

ASME DFM K. Ishii and B. Lee

redesign the product structure (configuration, materials, etc.), or 2) rethink the retirement strategy. Marks and Ishii used industry provided time standards for the disassembly costs. They used the concept of design compatibility analysis (DCA; Ishii et al, 1988) to evaluate the retirement cost for each clump, by checking the knowledge base for any compatibility information dealing specifically with a component's material and post-life intent for the clump (Figure 5). We have implemented the above concepts into our preliminary life-cycle design tool, LASeR (Life-cycle Assembly, Serviceability, and Retirement).
Redesign LINKER Design Representation Post-life Intent: "Clumping Strategy" Respecify

DFPR Knowledge Base

material residual fastener compatibility value contamination

Disassembly Cost Analysis

- record applicable rules - map rating to cost

- unclumped disassy. cost - clumped disassy. cost

Compatibility Rating Reprocessing Cost Disassembly Cost Savings

Figure 5. Clump Evaluation using DCA Hence, our approach in DFPR is to 1) use the Linker to capture the product layout design and retirement plan and to 2) is use knowledge-based technique to evaluate the retirement cost. Several groups in Stanfords graduate DFM curriculum used the approach in their course projects and found that clumping on Linker did not fully capture the details of the retirement specification needed to effectively evaluate the product reusability and recyclability. One group, working on the recyclability design of an electronics instrument, proposed the use of the assembly fishbone diagram in reverse direction. This feedback prompted us to define what we call the reverse fishbone diagram as a graphical representation of product retirement specification. Our intent was to supplement the Linker in developing a DFPR tool, but also to use the reverse fishbone as a communication tool to promote environmentally conscious product design. Reverse fishbone diagram could also facilitate application of FMEA to product retirement, just as assembly fishbone promoted engineers in process FMEA and Poka Yoke designs.

ASME DFM K. Ishii and B. Lee

4. THE REVERSE FISHBONE DIAGRAM 4.1 The Reverse Fishbone Concept Responding to suggestions from students and industrial partners, we began formalizing the reverse fishbone diagram for use as a new disassembly analysis tool in close concert with our design for manufacturability tools. As with assembly fishbone, the reverse fishbone is most effective when implemented at the layout design stage, when designers can identify disassembly complications and difficulties and ensure that product retirement concerns are addressed up front. The reverse fishbone method of describing and dissecting such sequences promotes a structured approach to advance planning of the disassembly and sorting process. The diagram encourages the designer to qualitatively "walk through" the disassembly process, identify difficulties, focus on cost driving disassembly tasks and steps that may lead to defects, and iterate towards solutions.
Coffee Maker Carafe (Reuse) Heater Assembly

Metal components (High grade recycling) Rubber / Plastic (Burn and recover energy) Upper Housing (High grade recycling) Lower Housing (Low grade recycling) Residue (burn and recover energy)

Figure 6: Concept of Reverse Fishbone Diagram Figure 6 shows the core idea of a reverse fishbone diagram using the coffee maker example used in figure 4. As with assembly fishbone, reverse fishbone schematically describes the disassembly steps for the product and specifies the retirement intent for each clump. Our current reverse fishbone mainly describes the clumping strategy and the basic disassembly sequence. Unlike the assembly fishbone, reverse fishbone does yet have a clearly defined set of symbols that indicate cost drivers. The manually intensive nature of current dismantling operation poses a challenge in defining a standard set of cost drivers and associated symbols. The current suggestion is to associate the graph with as much explanation in text as

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needed. We consider the reverse fishbone diagram an emerging essential analytical tool in the design and evaluation of product retirement processes for minimal environmental impact. 4.2 Information Required to Construct Reverse Fishbone Before the designer begins construction of the reverse fishbone, preliminary analysis of product or product family service information is essential. Designers must focus on areas of the product that deserve critical analysis of the disassembly and cost. They must identify and prioritize the modules, components or parts that should or shout not be targeted for maintenance, reuse, and recycling. Up front understanding of the post-disassembly sorting process thus facilitates optimal approaches to disassembly procedures. Analysis of product service and tear-down reports is necessary to identify the "fate" of major components, i.e., their final destination after tear-down, removal, and sorting (c.f. Table 1). From the service perspective, the reverse fishbone is a good starting point for targeting which items to keep for later use; other items are sorted into other fate categories, depending on recycling market or regulatory incentives. Table 1 A Domestic Electrical Instruments Company Example Component and Module Fate Categories Fate Keep Grade A Bin Grade B Bin Recycle System Grind Explanation Retain in inventory for testing and maintenance of existing product units Additional post-processing required, such as removal of high-value chips, the carcass goes to grind Specialized grind operations Recycle through third party vendors System carcass, ground up and separated/sorted for

Many parts need not be removed in the disassembly process. This notion differentiates our reverse fishbone diagram from other research that focuses solely on disassembly. Parts that remain in the product shell end up in the fate category System Grind. Depending on the product, this category can be a major portion of the product. 4.3 Construction of the Reverse Fishbone Engineers should generate the reverse fishbone by examining the physical hardware and close cousin hardware, and by analyzing the assembly and disassembly instructions. Knowing

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the intended fate of each part, one can construct the reverse fishbone diagram and determine the sequence dependency of the disassembly process as well as the parts that need not be disassembled. This procedure allows the disassembly process to focus only on those items that must be removed to be decomposed into the desired parts. Starting with the complete, integral product, one constructs the reverse fishbone in a top down fashion as the designer walks through, or physically disassembles, the device. Similar to the forward assembly, the reverse fishbone diagram can characterizes each disassembly step by its fixturing needs (the symbol "F" indicates that fixturing is required), reorientation requirements (circular arrow), and removal directions (straight and rotational arrows). The diagram can also include other symbols/markers indicating component fate category, time penalty factors, and connection separation method (break, pop, unscrew). Designers should include at least the tool requirement and removal difficulty as these symbols facilitate the rapid visual evaluation of disassembly difficulty. In our system, parts that are removed for reuse are shown in bold type, and correspond to the list of reusable components. Typically, the first few steps of reverse fishbone show a short series of disassembly steps as the first set of fasteners and product skin is removed. Then the fishbone generates a layer of sequentially independent steps, followed by a series of sequence dependent steps to the next layer, and so on. Sequence independent steps are illustrated on the same horizontal level; sequentially ordered disassembly steps move down the page. The reverse fishbone ends when all components with a fate other than "System Grind" have been removed, such that further disassembly is not required. The remaining pieces (or clumps) are sent to "System Grind" for disposal. Items requiring excessive disassembly times and incur high disassembly costs are typically those that must be removed late in the sequential disassembly process. This is particularly true for components that require removal of many other parts and fasteners in the general system before its removal. Note that while portions of the reverse fishbone may be derived from a "flipped" version of the forward assembly fishbone, assembly and disassembly sequences are generally not mirror images of one another. The designer should identify where optimal disassembly requires changes in fixturing, orientation, direction of action, and conductivity from the assembly procedure.

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4.4

Analysis of Reverse Fishbone Results Examination of the reverse fishbone diagram permits the designer to generate additional qualitative and quantitative information about his/her design's performance under product retirement scenarios. Used together with disassembly time data and clump reprocessing cost projections, fishbone analysis can provide the designer with early guidance in the following areas: retirement clump identification/refinement projections of fate category load levels, i.e., matching the retirement scenario with market demand of reused components and recycled materials identification of potential improvements in disassembly steps and procedures identification of inter-component connections that pose disassembly difficulties retirement cost/revenue stream projections identification of special disassembly tooling and fixturing requirements The reverse fishbone helps engineers to identify the strategic retirement clumps and determine the fate categories early in the design process. In short, reverse fishbone is a motivator and documentation method for retirement scenarios including disassembly and fate specification. This analysis leads to an estimation of the relative volumes of traffic (system load) for each of the different fate categories (e.g., keep, recycle, etc.). Engineers can also aggregate this analysis for the entire product familys projected product retirement stream thus aid in capacity planning of product retirement facilities and reverse supply chain. This in turn is useful for assessing revenue and cost streams associated with the sale and processing of each fate category. Improvements in the disassembly steps and procedures are another important goal of the reverse fishbone analysis. We find that a major factor in disassembly efficiency comes from the sequence independence of the retirement scenario. The reverse fishbone graphically characterize the difference between sequence dependent and independent disassembly specification (figure 7). The analysis may reveal that additional work is required to make the disassembly process more sequence independent. Sequence independent (e.g., parallel) disassembly is advantageous in that it allows overhead operations to be split among components, and permits many components to be removed or ignored without consideration of other components. Sequential disassembly, in contrast, requires that the system be disassembled according to a specified sequence of steps. This complexity is generally undesirable since it often requires excessive or otherwise unnecessary disassembly effort, as well as some prior knowledge of assembly procedures. The improvement effort combines decisions on modularity, retirement scenario, and conductivity between retirement clumps.

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Product

Product

End of Disassembly End of Disassembly (a) Sequence Dependent (b) Sequence Independent Figure 7 Two types of Reverse Fishbones Ideally, disassembly should have no sequence dependence; the reverse fishbone diagram would simply be a set of disassembly processes on the same horizontal level. Instead, we find that although many disassembly processes are sequence independent, they can require a minimum level of disassembly before initiation, or must occur at a specific point in the disassembly process. It is interesting to note that layered assembly, often a preferred design from ease of assembly, could lead to a sequence dependent disassembly sequence. The IBM Proprinter example shown in figure 3 is an excellent design for assembly, but not necessarily optimal from product retirement stand point. The reverse fishbone diagram is also helpful in revealing overhead misallocations because it isolates the overhead parts by showing them on the vertical axis. The horizontal branches of the reverse fishbone normally contain items that all depend on the overhead operations required to begin disassembly of the items on the respective branches. Overhead operations such as removing covers, grills and cabling need to be attributed to the components that are directly affected. We often find that overhead time items affect particular components instead of across the full component population. Finally, disassembly operations may require the design or purchase of special fixtures or tooling, and fixed retirement cost that can increase the total cost of disassembly because of adding to the up front overhead costs. These analytical results feed directly into the cost analysis of the retirement scenarios. The tooling requirement will also aid in advanced design of the product retirement facilities and planning for the reverse supply chain.

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5. APPLICATION EXAMPLE 5.1 Validation on Electronic Instruments Product A true validation of a DFE tool such as the reverse fishbone takes a long time. To determine if a product designed with this tool has low retirement cost and reduced environmental impact, one has to wait until the product becomes ready for retirement and companies begin to process them for reuse and recycling. For products such as appliances and automobiles, this period could be more than 10 years. For that reason, we have teamed up with companies that manufacture relatively short product life-cycle in the electromechanical and communication area. Products such as computers and its peripherals have life-cycle as short as two years and are posing particular challenges in design for product retirement and reverse manufacturing facilities. The primary means for validating our tool is Stanfords design for manufacturability curriculum, in which groups of students work on industry provided projects. In winter and spring of 1995, one group worked with a domestic electronic instruments company in analyzing one of their products and improving its recyclability. In addition to the manufacturing division, we collaborated with the companys recycling plant and corporate DFE strategy groups. Figure 8 shows a reverse fishbone diagram of the product retirement scenario suggested by the student group. The group also suggest redesign measures to make this retirement scenario possible. Their scenario takes advantage of the sequence independent disassembly process indicated by the two horizontal branches that lead to large recycle and reuse clumps. The retirement strategy was mostly a result of interviewing with personnel at the companys recycling organization and their rough estimation of disassembly times and reuse/recycling cost benefits. They used current available data for demand for parts for reuse, price of recycled materials, etc. We intend to conduct a more rigorous cost analysis study in early 1996. The study was our first attempt to apply the reverse fishbone to a commercial product and to define and the diagram and its construction procedure. The tool is still in its infancy and we can not claim it will lead to a significantly better design for the environment. The diagram in its current form does not generate design improvements nor provide optimal disassembly sequence. However, the diagram was quite useful as a communication tool between the manufacturing division and the recycling organization with this company. The construction of the reverse fishbone necessitated close communication between the different parties, and the diagram was an effective design review tool in generating redesign suggestions.

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COMPLETE ASSEMBLY screw bracket screw washer sequence indepen dent

cage board 4 ju mper cable

jumper cable jumper cable cablin g from J3

Digital IF board

seat grommet post reg. cable seat grommet

Analog board jumper cable

cage board 2 jumper cable GSP cable GSP cable bezel panel screw front bezel back bezel

post reg board install p ost regulator cables

STAY -> system grind cable

STAY -> system grind install test-set cab le ribbon cable floppy drive cable fr ont panel ribbon cab le patch panel screw feed through

sequence indepen dent

install cab le bracket screw screw screw

r eference cable r eference cable b racket

Beryllium Spring

mo nitor cable screw install monitor

in stall R Channel scr ew rigid co -ax cab le rigid co -ax cab le rigid co -ax cab le install A Channel scr ew install B Channel screw install HF source screw sheet metal clip GSP board R GB wire STAY -> system grin d install pulse gener ator scr ew screw STAY -> system grind screw flip entire unit attach rear panel loosen screws STAY -> system grin d screw in sert disk drive STAY -> system grind Deck Assy PC board scr ew test port coupler scr ew washer washer seat PC board scr ew Subassy #10 harn ess wire disc drive ribbon cab le disk drive housing scr ew scr ew heat sink cage assy cage assy scr ew cage side cage front cage edge scr ew cage edge flip cage assy scr ew rear frame assy cage assy scr ew cage end scr ew scr ew self adhesive sheet switch insulator switch actuator scr ew line button bezel support scr ew

screw screw p re-reg assy p re-reg assy

scr ew remove memory deck memory deck

STAY -> system grind warn ing lab el

solid state switch scr ew

STAY -> system grind routing cable BNC cable fan connector screw retain er ring cooling fan screw ribbon cable ribbon cable PC board

PC board END

STAY -> system grind insulator foam tap e foam tap e reinforcements

Figure 5.1 Reverse Fishbone Diagram of a Commercial Electronic Instrument Product

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5.2

Limitations of the Reverse Fishbone Similar to other DFM tools, the utility of the reverse fishbone diagram depends on the data available to the designers. Off particular importance is information necessary to evaluate the cost benefits of the retirement strategies as specified by the reverse fishbone. Successful use of the reverse fishbone method depends in large part on prior knowledge of the fate of all parts in a particular product system. Some companies have developed lists of parts that they will stock for their maintenance programs. For other components, the company separates only high value components or materials for recycling and the rest is left as carcass. This market demand information for reuse and recycling is essential for the designer to understand on what to focus and what to ignore. In the worst case scenario, the design should consider all reusable parts as candidates for removal. The reverse fishbone also assumes systematic disassembly processes are employed, rather than simply cutting and tearing product components apart. We have assumed that cost effective recycling is more likely to occur given systematic product treatment. In sum, the utility of the reverse fishbone is not in the diagram itself, but its construction and use as trade analysis and design review tool. In the immediate future, we see the great benefit of the diagram as an exercise in simultaneous engineering that brings recycling organization and other parties responsible for environmental impact of a product.

6.

CONCLUSION

This paper introduced the reverse fishbone diagram as a graphical representation of product retirement specification. We began with a brief description of the assembly fishbone diagram, followed by our strategy in developing a tool that aids in design for product retirement. The paper then gave a detailed description of the reverse fishbone diagram, its definition and construction. An industrial example of the diagram followed illustrating its utility. While still in its infancy of development, early feedback from industry indicates that the use of reverse fishbone is effective in the following DFE tasks: Development of product retirement scenarios and cost/benefit analysis Specification of cost effective disassembly sequence Planning for logistics of components for reuse and recycled materials

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Our immediate future task is to refine the reverse fishbone diagram as a tool to promote advanced planning for product retirement and documentation for retirement scenarios. We intend to test the utility of the diagram as design review and communication tool between manufacturing divisions and recycling organizations of various companies. Stanfords DFM curriculum will provide more commercial examples. The long range goal is to develop evaluation metrics for retirement scenarios of not only one product but for product families. The metrics will address the entire product line structure (families of products) and product generations (product changes over time). We propose to enhance the reverse fishbone and combine it with the Linker as a representation scheme for the design and retirement specification. Functional and structural trees, along with the retirement specification, form the basis of our formal representation. Then, we will identify the data and formulae necessary to evaluate the reusability and recyclability. The pertinent factors include: 1) technology life-cycle of functions imbedded into the modules, 2) demand for reuse of modules as service parts, 3) value of recycled materials vs. the reprocessing cost, 4) destructive or non-destructive disassembly of the modules, and 5) trade-off with manufacturing and life-cycle service costs. The methodology leads to an internet accessible computer tool that simulates the product retirement process, identifies cost-drivers, and improves the life-cycle design. Since the environmental impact is integrated over a companys manufacturing and reverse manufacturing operations, we feel that targeting the entire product family and its change over time (generations) is essential in achieving DFE. Designers will have to coordinate their projects with other activities in the organization and its supply chain to optimize the modularity of their product not only for manufacturing and service, but also for product retirement and other environmental impact.

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Acknowledgments The funding sources of this research include the National Science Foundation Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing Grant and AT&T Industrial Ecology Fellowship. The authors sincerely appreciate the help from Hewlett-Packard for providing student projects focusing on recyclability. Many thanks are due to the ME217 student team HP-DFE who motivated the authors in developing the reverse fishbone Also, thanks to Mahesh Damodare and Steven Kmenta for their assistance in creating the fishbone graphics. References Allenby, B.R. (1991) Design for Environment: A Tool Whose Time Has Come. SSA Journal, September, 1991, pp. 5-10. Amezquita, T, Hammond, R., Salazar, M, and Bras, B. (1995) "Characterizing the Remanufacturability of Engineering Systems." ASME Design Technical Conference, Sept. 1995, Boston, MA, DE-Vol. 82, pp. 271-278. Beitz, W. (1993) Designing for Ease of REcycling--General Approach and Industrial Applications. The ninth International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED), August, 1993, The Hague, Netherlands, pp. 325-332. Boothroyd, G. and Dewhurst, P., (1983), "Design for Assembly: a designer's handbook," Boothroyd Dewhurst Inc., Wakerfield, Rhode Island. Buchalter, C., Godard, C., Lacey, T., Tan, S. (1995), "Hewlett Packard Design for Environment (DFE) Project", ME217B Final Report, June 7, 1995. DeFazio, T.L., Edsall, A.C., Gustavson, R.E., Hernandez, J.A., Hutchins, P.,M., Leung, H.W., Luby, S.C., Metzinger, R.W., Nevins, J.L., Tung, K.K., and Whitney, D.E. (1990), Prototype of Feature-based Design for Assembly. ASME Design Automation Conference, Spet., 1990, Chicago, IL, DE-Vol 23-1, pp. 9-16. Hattori, M., and Inoue, H. (1993), "Concept of Ecofactory", Proc. of the 1993 IEEE/Tsukuba International Workshop on Advanced Robotics, Tsukuba, Japan, November, 1993, pp. 3-8. Hinckley, M. and Barkan, P. (1993), "Benefits and Limitations of the DFA Structured Methodologies in Product Design," ASME Manufacturing Review vol. 6, no. 3. Ishii, K. and Kmenta, S. (1995), "Introduction to Design for Assembly", in ME217A Course Reader, Design for Manufacturability: Product Definition, Stanford Bookstore. Ishii, K., Adler, R., and Barkan, P. (1988) "Application of Design Compatibility Analysis to Simultaneous Engineering", Artificial Intelligence for Engineering, Analysis and Manufacturing (AI EDAM), Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 53-65.

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ASME DFM K. Ishii and B. Lee

Ishii, K., Eubanks, C., and Di Marco, P. (1994), "Design for Product Retirement and Material Life-cycle." Materials and Design. Vol. 15, No. 4, pp. 225-233. Ishii, K., Eubanks, C.F., Marks, M. (1992) Evaluation Methodology for Post-Manufacturing Issues in Life-cycle Design, Concurrent Engineering: Research and Applications. Vol. 1, pp. 61-68. Ishii, K., Hornberger, L., and Liou, M. (1989), "Compatibility-based Design for Injection Molding", Proc. of the 1989 ASME Winter Annual Meeting: Concurrent Product and Process Design, San Francisco, CA, December, 1989, pp. 153-160. Ishii, K., Lee, B., and Eubanks, C. (1995) Design for Product Retirement and Modularity Based on Technology Life Cycle, submitted to 1995 ASME Winter Annual Meeting Symposium on Life Cycle Engineering, November 12 - 17, 1995. Marks, M., Eubanks, C., and Ishii, K. (1993b), "Life-Cycle Clumping of Product Designs for Ownership and Retirement." Proc. of the ASME Design Theory and Methodology Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico. ASME DE-Vol. 53, ISBN 0-7918-1170-0. Miyakawa, S. et. al., (1990), "The Hitachi New Assemblability Evaluation Method (AEM)," Trans. of the North American Manufacturing Research Institute, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, p. 352-357. Otto, K. (1995). Course Notes on Design for Assembly, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Poli, C., Graves, J., and Sunderland, J.E. (1988) Computer-Aided Product Design for Economical Manufacture. ASME Computers in Engineering, 1988. Vol. 1, pp.23-37. Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) (1991) A Technical Framework for Life-Cycle Assessments, January, 1991, Washington, D.C. Sturges, R., and Kilani, M. (1992) Towards an Integrated Design for an Assembly Evaluation and Reasoning System. Computer-Aided Design, Vol 24, No. 2, pp. 67-78. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1993) "Life-Cycle Assessment: Inventory Guidelines and Principles", EPA Report No. EPA/600/R-92/245, Office of Research and Development, Washington, D.C.