Improving ELVs Components Locating in a Dismantling Company

The management of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) is a key element for global sustainability. In this context, vehicles dismantling companies need to improve their production processes in order to achieve not only cost-effective, but also sustainable systems. Major challenges for these companies result from the enormous variety of components to be disassembled and stored, and from uncertainty at the ELVs' supply and at the components demand. In this paper, a study for the improvement of the processes associated with the locating and identification of stored components in the warehouse of a Portuguese ELVs dismantling company was developed, observing the company's current processes and the potential opportunities for improvement. From here, propositions were made to update the warehouse management system (WMS), warehouse layout, components location/ identification and its codification. This study is potentially useful for the case-study company as well as other businesses from the same sector.