A systematic literature review of modular product design (MPD) from the perspective of sustainability

Abstract

Modular product design (MPD), as its name implies, subdivides complicated products and systems into components and considers them individually instead of as an amalgamated whole. Because of its merit in reducing complexity, MPD is widely used in engineering fields, especially in design engineering. Over the last decade, increasing concerns about environmental impact have driven manufacturers to reconsider their product design processes from the view of sustainability. The blending of these concepts—modularity and sustainability—has attracted significant attention from both academia and industry. The ways in which sustainability influences MPD are not fully understood, evidencing a gap that needs to be further researched. This review examines more than 100 studies addressing ways MPD is associated with sustainability factors and classifies these studies based on major sustainability themes. The initial review and analysis were conducted using literature summarization tables and a maturity index. Our search emphasized not only the performance of MPD methodologies with respect to sustainability factors but also the relationship between MPD and sustainability categories. Our review results indicate that from an academic perspective, research over the last 15 years has seen a significant increase in studies involving MPD and product life cycles, MPD and product innovation, and MPD and environmental management. Secondarily, our findings reveal that from an industry perspective, the literature shows that modularity has a positive impact on sustainability and identifies several social sustainability-related areas in MPD that could benefit from further investigation.