Design For Environment Methodology Research Articles

Product Sustainable Design: A Review From the Environmental, Economic, and Social Aspects

AbstractAs a global concern, the sustainability of a product is the responsibility for manufacturing. Product design has become one of the sources and core drivers for manufacturing competition, and the international competitiveness of products would mostly depend on product design capabilities. The product design has essential and profound impacts on the manufacturing, and thus, many researchers focus on product design and make varies of contributions in this area. Product sustainable design is a design process for a product with the consideration of environmental, economic, and social sustainability during the product entire life cycle. The result of product sustainable design is the creation of products with high sustainability of environmental, economic, and social aspects. This paper reviews the state of the art in the product sustainable design methodologies and tools from the perspective of environmental, economic, and social aspects. For the environmental perspective, design for environment methodologies and tools would enable products in a more environmentally friendly manner in the manufacturing. For the economic perspective, this paper introduces the design methodologies for the economic sustainability with cost, assembly, manufacture, and supply chain. For the social perspective, this paper introduces sustainable social design and social responsibility design for social sustainability and social sustainability through social intervention and social innovation. In addition, it encourages future works.

Sustainable manufacturing: a case study of the forklift painting process

Life cycle assessment (LCA) and design for environment (DFE) methods were applied to assess opportunities for reducing the environmental impacts of forklift manufacturing unit processes and to redesign those unit processes to increase overall sustainability. The unit processes of forklift manufacture generating the most environmental emissions were identified by applying LCA methodology. The results show that eco-toxicity and human toxicity were the most significant impacts of the forklift manufacturing process overall. Also, within the manufacturing unit processes, cutting, welding and painting had the highest impact values. In order to minimise environmental impacts, a new paint was created with increased solid content over the existing solvent paint used in the painting process. In addition, by applying DFE methodology and the high solid paint, overcoat and drying steps were eliminated from the forklift painting process. As a result, the environmental index of a follow-up LCA showed that environmental impacts could be reduced by 20%, while volatile organic compound (VOC) and paint usage could be decreased by 30% and 20%, respectively.

Development of a sustainable product lifecycle in manufacturing firms: a case study

This study discusses a methodology for integrating Design for Environment (DfE) and life cycle assessment (LCA) techniques both into new product development and into the process of redesigning a set of existing products. The article explains the reasons for developing DfE in general, and pays particular attention to a specific, chosen product, a class of electrical distribution boards, to illustrate the concept. The main process steps in the development of the DfE are outlined, and the development of a LCA that satisfies the requirements of the ISO 14040 standard is illustrated. A major benefit of the DfE methodology proposed in this work is the possibility to use LCA data both during new product development and when modifying old products, with the aim of continuously reducing the overall environmental impact of products during their life cycle. This improvement cycle begins with the attempt to find new design solutions (for assembly and set-up in the case of electrical distribution boards), continues with the calculation of the enviromental break even point (BEP) and with the assessment of the BEP for the expenses incurred by the client. On the basis of these calculations and bearing in mind the technical specifications required by the clients and the work environment in which the product will be used, the designers will be able to make the most efficient choices from both the environmental and the economic point of view.

Green design of telecom products: the ADSL high speed modem as a case study

This paper discusses the principles of life cycle assessment (LCP) and design for environment (DFE) and their application in the design and development of the asymmetric digital subscriber loop (ADSL) high speed modem, This application was used as a case study to evaluate the feasibility of incorporating "green" issues into the design cycle, Section II focuses on the green design methodology. It describes some fundamentals and the state-of-the-art of LCA/DFE. It also raises some critical issues that show up in the definition of LCA/DFE methodology. Section III describes the actual case study. It shows how the green design methodology, described in Section Il, is adopted to the project under study. More specifically, it is described how the LCA is introduced into the physical design stage of the product, which assumptions are taken into account for the LCA analysis, and how the analysis affects the usual product design flow. It discusses how the study started by performing an LCA of the ADSL high speed modem R1 (Release 1), with a large emphasis on the analysis of manufacturing processes. Secondly, these LCA results were used as input for the DFE methodology, in order to design a perceived greener product, the ADSI high speed modem R2 (Release 2). The "greenness" of this new product is validated by comparing the two environmental profiles. This case study resulted in a coherent and extensive environmental assessment of some fundamental design options (and the associated manufacturing processes) involved in complex electronic devices. By implementing the results of this LCA into a specific DFE methodology, green design issues have been introduced in the design cycle as just another design constraint to be dealt with.