Circular Economy, Recycling & Remanufacturing worked example

Disassembly Labor Load at 16% teardown setup, sorting, and handling allowance: a worked example

Suppose teardown setup, sorting, and handling allowance falls to 16%. This page works the full calculation at that level so you can see exactly which result moves and by how much. Estimate labor time needed to disassemble returned products or cores before repair, harvest, recycling, or remanufacturing.

The inputs for this scenario

  • Products or cores to disassemble: 420 units (held at the documented default)
  • Disassembly completion rate: 1.6 units / min (held at the documented default)
  • Teardown setup, sorting, and handling allowance: 16 % (the input this scenario stresses; the baseline uses 22)

Working through the calculation

  • The calculation starts from the formula this tool documents: Base disassembly labor load = products or cores to disassemble รท disassembly completion rate.
  • Required disassembly labor load works out to 305 min at these inputs, and this is the headline figure for the scenario.
  • Base disassembly labor load works out to 263 min at these inputs.
  • Teardown setup, sorting, and handling allowance applied works out to 16 % at these inputs.
  • Disassembly completion rate works out to 1.6 pieces / min at these inputs.

How this compares with the baseline

  • Against the tool's baseline example, where teardown setup, sorting, and handling allowance sits at 22% and the headline result is 320 min, this scenario comes in 4.92% below the baseline at 305 min.
  • It computes required teardown minutes by dividing units by the disassembly completion rate to get base time, then scaling that up by a setup, sorting, and handling allowance. When the numbers land here, the stressed input is the lever to work; the walkthrough above shows exactly how much each output recovers as it climbs back toward the baseline.

Results at a glance

  • Required disassembly labor load: 305 min (headline result)
  • Base disassembly labor load: 263 min
  • Teardown setup, sorting, and handling allowance applied: 16 %
  • Disassembly completion rate: 1.6 pieces / min

Run it with your numbers

  • To rerun this with your own numbers, open the live Disassembly Labor Load calculator, set teardown setup, sorting, and handling allowance to your actual value, and adjust the remaining inputs to match your operation.

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.