Assessment of recyclability with Philips’ tool and ease of (robotic) disassembly of a Siemens Soft Starter

Electronic components are known to contain both valuable and critical raw materials (CRMs) that must be recovered to meet the goals set by the European Commission in their Critical Raw Materials Act. To achieve these goals and to ensure the sustainability and effective End-of-(First)-Life management, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are in search of practical methods and tools to systematically integrate into their design process to, asses their product’s ease of manual and robotic disassembly and recyclability. To support OEMs in this, a three-phase methodology is presented and applied to a SIRIUS soft starter of SIEMENS AG: (i) ease of manual and human-robot cooperative disassembly assessment (by applying the by the authors developed Robotic ease of Disassembly Metric), (ii) recyclability evaluation (using the Philips’ tool), and (iii) a lifecycle engineering assessment. The results from the first two phases provide insights into the product’s design and materials that lead to inefficiencies during end-of-life treatment. Meanwhile, the third phase combines lifecycle impact analysis and lifecycle costing methods to evaluate the economic, environmental, and strategic aspects of design for disassembly and for recycling. This comprehensive approach aims to provide a pathway for innovation for OEMs to enhance the sustainability of their products and compliance with upcoming EU ecodesign for sustainable product regulation (ESPR), while also providing recommendations to policy makers to develop regulatory requirements that promote best ecodesign practices.