A systematic approach for green design in modular product development

Abstract

In response to the changing market trend of having large varieties within a small production, green design and modular design have assumed significant roles in the product development process. This research applied quality function deployment (QFD) to achieve the goal of analyzing customers' needs. It also applied design structure matrix (DSM) based on the modular concept to group different design parts together to obtain optimized module efficiency. A balance between product development and ecological (ECO) friendliness can be achieved in advance if green QFD (GQFD) and DSM were introduced during the early design and manufacturing stages. Furthermore, using the result of GQFD, we proposed the analysis of DSM to find the result of coupled tasks. A pairwise comparative algorithm and loop analysis algorithm in DSM were utilized to decrease the number of module groups and find the most suitable clustering approach for further green design consideration. In this research, an electronic translator was used as a case study for the integration of green design with modularity. The main goal of this paper is to sort the importance weight values for green consideration by QFD during product development. These results can then be applied to finish modular grouping by DSM for subsequent green assembly and disassembly considerations of the products.