End of Life and Disposal

End of Life and Disposal is the process of retiring products from service, dismantling them, and recovering or responsibly disposing of their materials and components. It is the closing phase of the lifecycle and the gate where a circular-economy strategy either succeeds or fails — the engineering decisions that enable it were made years earlier in design.

Scope

The process covers take-back logistics, dismantling instructions linked to the as-built configuration, hazardous-substance handling (WEEE, ELV, RoHS), refurbishment vs recycling vs energy-recovery routing, recyclate yield reporting, and EU Digital Product Passport disclosures. Effective EoL relies on lifecycle data preserved across decades, so the PLM digital thread must outlive any single PLM tool generation.

Relationships (see sidebar)

• Realizes Sustainability and Circularity and Regulatory Compliance.
• Supported by logical capabilities such as PLM Data Model and Digital Thread.
• Receives the asset from Service and Maintenance at retirement.