Abstract
The concept of eco-design is an area of interest of many manufacturers. Its implementation provides a framework that allows companies to adapt to the requirements of sustainable development related to the design and manufacturing of environmentally-friendly products. Implementation of eco-design in the industry requires dedicated information technologies. Many types of software tools are offered which support eco-design, and the choice of the one which suits the user best is not easy. The paper describes an analysis of three selected IT tools dedicated to the environmental assessment of products, integrated with the 3D CAD environment. The analysis has been carried out on the basis of specially developed reference models of sets (assemblies) imitating small household appliances. The models have been designed to support the creation of various configurations of connections between elements (parts of the assembly). The study experiments consist in changing the configurations and observing how the changes affect the environmental parameters of the modelled structure. The results have been used to describe the scope of support offered by each of the tools under analysis and their suitability for the environmental assessment of products.
Highlights
Application of the principles of sustainable manufacturing means that the product is expected to be economically viable – from the point of view of both the consumer and the manufacturer
Assuming that the user may want to search for information needed to perform the ratio analysis, and to analyze the compatibility of the materials used, the focus was on defining the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of these tools
Suggesting changes to improve recycling and dismantling, as well as analysis of the impact of the introduced change on quantitative measures, i.e. water consumption, energy consumption, cost, etc
Summary
Application of the principles of sustainable manufacturing means that the product is expected to be economically viable – from the point of view of both the consumer and the manufacturer. Sustainable products are designed to be eco-friendly, optimised in terms of material and energy consumption, and durable [1] This is related to the concept of the circular economy, which assumes a closed loop of processes, where waste from some processes is used as raw materials in other processes. The most important activities of the manufacturers in the area of sustainable production include boosting efficient use of resources, application of alternative power sources, revisiting of the entire supply and manufacturing network life cycle [3] and ensuring full recyclability of the product This will allow to achieve the policy objectives in line with the EU CEAP (EU Circular Economy Action Plan), which are: reduction of the negative impact of the product on the environment, reduction of waste and extension of the life cycle, as well as increasing the company's competitiveness. Considering the above, the process of product design aimed at achieving the maximum environmental friendliness, referred to as eco-design, is growing in importance
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