CAD and DFM: enablers of sustainable product design

Sustainability has been regarded as an important concept for survival in the contemporary scenario. Modern design engineers are in need of approaches for creating sustainable products. In this context, this paper reports a case study carried out in an Indian modular switches manufacturing organisation. The existing handle of the switch has been modelled using computer-aided design (CAD). Then, the sustainability analysis has been carried out for determining the environmental impact. This is followed by the redesign of the handle using design for manufacturability (DFM) principles. The sustainability has been measured in terms of carbon footprint, energy consumption and air–water impacts. It has been found that the redesigned handle possesses minimal environmental impact. It could be inferred from the results of the case study that CAD and DFM could lead to the development of sustainable product design with minimal impact on the environment.     

Integration of DFE and DFMA for the sustainable development of an automotive component

The recent developments in manufacturing organizations recognize sustainability as an important value addition for survival in the competitive scenario. The design engineers are in search of approaches for creating environmental conscious products. The purpose of this paper is to report a research carried out for ensuring sustainable product design by the integration of Design for Environment (DFE) and Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) methodologies. In this context, this paper reports a case study carried out in an automotive component. The candidate product is the charge alternator pulley. The existing pulley has been created using Computer Aided Design. Then sustainability analysis was conducted on the existing component for determining environmental impact. This is followed by the engineering analysis of the component using ANSYS. Then conceptual design changes were developed in the proposed product using DFMA concept. Then the environmental impact has been evaluated in terms of carbon footprint, energy consumption and air/water impacts on proposed product. It has been found that the optimized pulley design possesses minimal environmental impact. The result of the case study indicated that the integration of DFE and DFMA concept could initiate new developments in sustainable designs with minimal impact to the environment and it also reduces the product cost.     

Application of QFD for enabling environmentally conscious design in an Indian rotary switch manufacturing organisation

Many businesses are recognising that environmental consciousness is an important concept for survival in today's highly competitive market. This paper presents a project in which quality function deployment (QFD) for environment (QFDE) has been applied to an Indian rotary switch manufacturing organisation to enable environmentally conscious design at the early stage of product development. QFDE consists of four phases. QFDE phases I and II are concerned with the identification of the rotary switch parts that are important in enhancing environmental consciousness. QFDE phases III and IV are concerned with the evaluation of the effect of design improvement on environmental quality requirements. The results obtained from the case study revealed that QFDE could be applied in the early stage of rotary switch product development as it identified the vital components from an environmental perspective and enabled the options for design improvement to be effectively evaluated. The managerial implications of the case study have also been presented.     

Sustainable design of sprocket using CAD and Design Optimisation

The contemporary manufacturing organisations recognise sustainability as a vital concept for survival in the competitive scenario. The modern design engineers are in need of approaches for creating environmentally friendlier products. In this context, this project reports a case study carried out in an Indian sprocket manufacturing organisation. The existing sprocket has been created using Computer Aided Design (CAD). Then, the sustainability analysis has been performed for determining the environmental impact. This is followed by the optimisation of sprocket design using Design Optimisation. The environmental impact has been measured in terms of carbon footprint, energy consumption and air/water impacts. It has been found that the optimised sprocket design possess minimal environmental impact. The results of the case study indicated that CAD and Design Optimisation could lead to the development of sustainable design with minimal impact to the environment.     

A hybrid approach for environmental impact evaluation of design options

The strengthened environmental regulatory requirements and general awareness of the need for environmental conservation worldwide, design for environment has become a key design criterion in new product development processes. Due to their resources-consuming attribute and the prerequisite expert knowledge in environmental sciences for the impacts interpretations, the existing forms of product-oriented environmental impact assessment methods are impractical to be adopted by product designers in small-and-medium enterprises. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a generally accepted quantitative approach to assess a product’s environmental impact. However, a full LCA study often requires a considerable amount of data and therefore, it is regarded as not a handy tool for product design evaluations particularly at the initial design stage. This leads to our intention to develop an immediately applicable approach for decision-makers to evaluate the design options. The proposed approach integrates Analytic Hierarchy Process and Fuzzy Theory, with Evidential Reasoning (ER) to support the environmental impact evaluations of design options. A case study is carried out to demonstrate its applicability to prioritize the environmental impact of various design options. A symmetrical triangular distribution is introduced for calculating the expected utility and for testing the sensitivity of results.     

Fibre reinforced polymers in the sports industry – Life Cycle Engineering methodology applied to a snowboard using anisotropic layer design

Technological development has had huge impacts in sports performance throughout the years, fostering the development of specific materials and manufacturing processes for sports-related products. Within this context, a new technology for snowboards was developed taking advantage of the internal coupling effects of Fibre Reinforced Plastics (FRP) using an anisotropic layer design. This work deals with the technical, economic and environmental evaluation of a snowboard made of three alternative materials, namely carbon, glass and flax fibre reinforced plastics. It shows how a life cycle analysis can support the design and development of products by applying a Life Cycle Engineering methodology to the design process of a snowboard using an innovative technology. In this case, both the material choice and the fiber placement angles have a significant impact on the stiffness of the resulting FRP and thus in the three dimensions of analysis - cost, environmental and technical. The natural fiber is the most sustainable option environmentally, the glass fiber is the best one economically and the carbon fibre is the best in terms of technical performance. Therefore, the importance attributed to each dimension of analysis is pondered and traded-off to allow an aggregated analysis of the alternatives and a well-informed decision-making.     

Construction of an optimum system design method considering product lifecycle

This paper proposes an optimum system design method that especially considers product lifecycles and aims to help designers make effective decisions during the product design phase. By considering and estimating all lifecycle factors of cost and environmental impact in addition to the product performance, this method facilitates development of optimum design solutions that incorporate requirements pertaining to the product's entire lifecycle. Furthermore, quantitative estimation of lifecycle factors enables the numerical expression of optimum solutions, rather than depending primarily on experiment and designer intuition. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, this paper develops an optimum system design method for a milling machine as an example of a machine product designed for long term use. The lifecycle cost and the lifecycle environmental impact are generally expressed as the summation of each value during manufacturing phase, usage phase, disposal phase and recycling phase. In this example model, Eco-indicator 99 is used to evaluate environmental impact. In the proposed lifecycle design optimisation method, the relationships among the product performance, the lifecycle cost and the lifecycle environmental impact are evaluated as a multi-objective optimisation problem. Analysis of the obtained Pareto optimum solution sets subsequently enables designers to pursue breakthrough product design solutions.     

Selection of green product design scheme based on multi-attribute decision-making method

The function, cost and environmental performance are the primary decision-making factors for scheme selection in green design. For the comprehensive and accurate decision-making in selecting green product design scheme, a quantitative analysis method of multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) is presented. With analysing the multi-attribute of scheme selection, the MADM model is established, which takes environmental impact of materials, disassembly performance, recycling performance, energy efficiency, noise, pollutants to environmental and functional values. Fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution method is applied to solve this model for the feasible solutions. Finally, a case study is given to validate the application of this methodology as a useful design guideline for scheme selection in green design.     

Limits of ecodesign: the case for open source product development

Abstract

In pursuit of coping mechanisms for the challenges of sustainable manufacturing, systematic methods have been developed to allow engineers to improve the ratio between products’ utility and environmental impact. These necessary efforts remain however limited if the surrounding production and consumption practices are not called into question at the same time. This article introduces open source product development as a potential approach for unlocking the limits of existing sustainable product design practices and to lead towards alternative and eco-efficient production and consumption practices termed as participative production. First, it discusses the potential advantages of this emerging practice in terms of environmental sustainability. Second, it provides a screened qualitative environmental analysis of 18 exemplary open source hardware products. Specific sustainable design principles implemented by these products are highlighted and discussed in order to identify challenges for further common research in the field of open source and sustainable product development.     

Environmental implications of planned obsolescence and product lifetime: a literature review

The aim of this paper was to explore the implications of planned obsolescence (PO) and the associated product lifetime on the environmental impact of products. To achieve this task, a literature review was performed to assess both the historical context and recent situation of planned obsolescence. A search in scholarly journals was performed to evaluate to what extent product lifetime and PO have been discussed in the recent literature. Based on the findings, selected cases of PO are discussed and trends in the practice of limiting product lifetime are identified. Factors considered to have a significant influence on product lifetime have been identified and discussed. The discussion of case studies made it possible to establish the links between product design, manufacturing and associated impacts of lifetime. The role of the actors along the value chain is also considered to propose a business scheme, where the influences of consumer behaviour and design choices are crucial. Finally, strategies to facilitate the definition of different scenarios are given. These strategies may serve to increase the reliability of environmental assessment throughout a product life cycle.     

An integrated approach for the benchmarking of production facilities’ environmental performance: data envelopment analysis and life cycle assessment

Environmental impacts have become an important consideration in the manufacturing industry due to increasing public pressure for environment protection and the requirements of recently launched legislations. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a widely adopted methodological approach for the benchmarking of the relative efficiency of different production units. Changes in production efficiency may affect environmental impacts. DEA can be used for identifying the most efficient production facility and hence, the environmental impacts generated from the different production lines can then be benchmarked. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is carried out to quantify the full environmental impacts of a product from ‘cradle to grave’. The integration of LCA with DEA, efficiency and environmental impact of different production processes for a certain family of products can be evaluated and benchmarked. The proposed two-stage approach can help to reduce the aggregate environmental impacts of the manufacturing phase and is used to benchmark the environmental performance of several production lines in a manufacturing company.     

Multiobjective optimisation method for life-cycle design of mechanical products

Manufacturing that minimises the exhaustion of natural resources, energy used and deleterious environmental impact is increasingly demanded by societies that seek to protect global environments as much as possible. To achieve this, life-cycle design (LCD) is an essential component of product design scenarios; however, LCD approaches have not been well integrated in optimal design methods that support quantitative decision-making. This study presents a method that yields quantitative solutions through optimisation analysis of a basic product design incorporating life-cycle considerations. We consider two types of optimisation approaches that have different aims, namely, (1) to reduce the use of raw materials and energy consumption and (2) to facilitate the reuse of the product or its parts when it reaches the end of its useful life. We also focus on how the optimisation results differ according to the approach used, from the viewpoint of the 3R concept (Reduce, Reuse and Recycling). Our method obtains optimum solutions by evaluating objectives fitted to each of these two optimisation approaches with respect to the product's life-cycle stages, which are manufacturing, use, maintenance, disposal, reuse and recycling. As an applied example, a simple linear robot model is presented, and Pareto optimum solutions are obtained for the multiobjective optimisation problem whose evaluated objectives are the operating accuracy of the robot and the different life-cycle costs for the two approaches. The characteristics of the evaluated objectives and design variables, as well as the effects of using material characteristics as design parameters, are also examined.     

Comparing environmental product footprint for electronic and electric equipment: a multi-criteria approach

Electronic and electric devices are now applied in most human activities: their diffusion is increasing worldwide; furthermore, most of them are characterized by a high replacement rate due to technological obsolescence. Consequently, environmental problems due to their diffusion are increasing; several aspects are involved from the energy consumption derived from their manufacturing processes and their use phases to their end-of-life (EOL) management. Such legislative (e.g. the European Energy Efficiency directive for household appliances) or voluntary interventions (e.g. based on the ISO standards) have been introduced for such devices: the aim is to incorporate environmental considerations in product design and manufacturing in order to benefit the environment. Some attempts are focusing on defining standardized models for the overall lifecycle including waste management. The aim of this paper is to introduce a reference model for comparing environmental product footprint of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE). All life cycles of EEE will be evaluated: a specific focus is on the EOL management process as their waste management represents a complex problem for developed and developing countries. A multi-criteria decision-making model will be developed based on the well-known analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method: differently from traditional AHP applications, an absolute model has been proposed in order to compare EEE effectively from an environmental point of view. A case study validation regarding large household appliances is proposed.     

Application of environmentally conscious manufacturing strategies for an automotive component

Application of appropriate environmentally conscious manufacturing strategies enables the sustainable development of products and processes. Automotive component manufacturers recognise the potential of applying appropriate strategies for attaining Triple Bottom Line benefits. In this context, three strategies such as eco-efficiency, waste minimisation and material efficiency are being applied to minimise environmental impacts associated with the manufacture of automotive products and its associated processes. A case study of an automotive component manufacturing firm has been exemplified. After conducting the study, the potential environmental impact was reduced by 20% and eco-efficiency was improved by 13%. Further, improvements have been observed in terms of overall resource consumption and material efficiency. The overall power consumption was reduced by 18% and weight of the component was reduced by 11%. The study aimed at improving the sustainable performance of product by incorporating green and environmentally friendlier manufacturing practices.

Abbreviations: USEPA: United Nations Environmental Protection Agency; OECD: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; WBCSD: World Business Council for Sustainable Development; Eco-QFD: Environmental Quality Function Deployment; WCED: World Commission on Environment and Development; LCA: Life Cycle Assessment     

Reverse logistics network design: a conceptual framework for decision making

Reverse logistics play a significantly increased role in supply chains. Producers are incorporating reverse logistics into their supply chain design because of governmental legislation, economic benefits from product recovery, and customers' demands for better environmental practices. Motivated producers face two main challenges in reverse logistics network design: (1) how do you build product recovery activities into traditional forward logistics networks? and (2) how do you manage the impact of uncertainty in the reverse logistics supply chain? Moreover, producers need to consider many tradeoffs leading to efficient network design. Published case studies have discussed these tradeoffs, and we describe a framework to evaluate these tradeoff considerations. We then apply the framework to three new case studies: medical device refurbishing, municipal e‐waste recycling, and carpet fibre recycling.     

Carbon weight analysis for machining operation and allocation for redesign

The objective of this research paper is to explore and develop a new methodology for computing carbon weight (CW) – often referred to as carbon footprint, in manufacturing processes from part level to assembly level. In this initial study, we focused on machining operations, specifically turning and milling, for computing CW. Our initial study demonstrates that CW can be computed using either actual measured data from process level information or from initial material and manufacturing process information. In mechanical design, tolerance analysis principles extend from design to manufacturing and tolerances accumulate for parts and processes. By extending this notion to CW, we apply mechanical tolerancing principles for computing worst case and statistical case CW of a product. We call this the CW tolerance approach (CWTA). Two case studies demonstrate the computation of CW. Based on the tolerance allocation concepts; CW allocation is also demonstrated through specific redesign examples. CWTA helps in identifying carbon intensive parts/processes and can be used to make appropriate design decisions.     

Putting consumers first in design for sustainable behaviour: a case study of reducing environmental impacts of cold appliance use

To slow down the increasing environmental degradation, design for sustainable behaviour (DfSB) has emerged in sustainable design aiming to promote behavioural change through design innovations to reduce environmental and social impacts from the demand side or consumer side. This paper presents a practice-based journey to investigate the process and results of the application of social-psychological theories into sustainable design. Focusing on the behaviour-related impacts of products and services during the use stage, a Design Behaviour Intervention Model (DBIM) is developed through the analysis and synthesis of the social-psychological theories and behaviour-changing strategies. The DBIM indicates that an in-depth study of consumer behaviour is the preliminary step in DfSB, which determines the application of design strategies and potentially the effectiveness of design interventions. A case study is presented to demonstrate the application of the model. The results show that consumer behaviour insights offer rich resources to assist designers in sustainable design innovation. Product-based design suggestions and a proposed solution highlight that the application of DBIM coupled with consumer involvement throughout the design process could produce desirable and sustainable patterns of household fridge use. Finally, the structured consideration of behavioural change and their possible application in DfSB are discussed.     

The elaboration process – an approach for sustainable product development: a case study

Environmentally conscious product development, eco-design or design for environment is the methodology trying to introduce environmental requirements into product design. The first step of this process is the gathering of customer requirements for a structured product development procedure, such as quality function deployment (QFD). The problem is that environmental requirements are usually unspoken by the customers. This paper describes a methodology for uncovering such requirements by using environmental default questions in an elaboration process. This leads to an increased customer environmental awareness, and it generates a comprehensive list of requirements suitable for use in a subsequent QFD process. The effects of the elaboration process are demonstrated in one case study.     

Valorisation of crude earth as sustainable building material: a case of international cooperation in the Logone Valley (Chad–Cameroon)

Deforestation is one of the most dramatic threats to environmental equilibrium and food safety in many regions of the world, and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. It is enhanced by many kinds of human activities, among which is the earth brick-firing process that needs large amounts of wood for attaining and maintaining temperatures required during this process. In order to reduce deforestation, the present study investigated from different points of view the potential of crude earth to be used as building material, taking as a case study the Logone Valley located at the border between Chad and Cameroon. First, an on-site investigation was made to verify the state-of-the-art of brick production technologies and to evaluate their impact on the environment. Subsequently, morphological and geotechnical analyses on soil samples collected from different sites of the Logone Valley were carried out, to evaluate their suitability to brick production. Finally, a pilot plant for crude earthen brick production was set, particularly based on a new press designed for this purpose.