Design for sustainability

Many researchers have been recently approached the integration of products and services since its relevance in modern industrial scenarios. Despite several authors investigated such topics and defined methods to support companies in product-service ideation and design, they proposed methodologies tailored on specific issues: PSS assessment, requirements elicitation, functional modelling, etc. Anyway, neither of them has found an integration among almost of such methods. This paper presents a review of the current literature approaching PSS design and assessment along the last fifteen years. This due to there are different perspectives to frame PSS. According to this context, the paper gives an overview of PSS development in manufacturing industry, laying the groundwork for designers to develop an integrated tool able to incorporate some of the design methodologies and support manufacturing companies involved in the proposal of the PSS instead of traditional product.

Keywords: Business model , PSS (Product-Service System) , PSS assessment , PSS design , PSS sustainability

Society increasingly demands for effective waste management policies to make industries more environmentally sustainable. Organizations are even issuing directives to drive choices about these policies. In particular, modern industries produce a lot of packaging, which soon become waste, even before product usage. Research can face the problem with improvements in recycling and recovery processes. However, even if recycling and recovery would enable waste to have still a value, most costs and benefits are determined at the design stage. Therefore, Design for Environment criteria must be adopted in the design tasks, from the early conceptual design when the main design solutions are defined. The design criteria to assess possible design choices must consider all the environmental impacts of packaging over its lifecycle. The present work focuses on Redesign for Environment of packaging solutions. Following a systematic design process, we use different criteria to evaluate the effects of design solutions on packaging, since waste can be seen just as one of the main phases of packaging life. To this purpose, we adopt the stages of the waste hierarchy set by the EU Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC as design evaluation criteria. The waste hierarchy sets a priority order for five life cycle stages that a packaging can go through. The stages of the hierarchy can be differently weighted according to the costs and benefits they involve. The proposed Design for Environment method based on the waste hierarchy criteria is finally applied in the redesign of an industrial case study. The packaging solution as foldable wooden crates were chosen for their capability to already comply with the first stages of the hierarchy, that is reducing waste with high customization to customer requirements and crate reuse. Hence, the case study improved the next stages with easing the wood recycle and recovery processes.

Keywords: Design for environment , Foldable wooden crates , Packaging , Recovery , Recycling , Waste hierarchy

Having environmental indications such as those provided by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), while designing a product would reduce the time required by the trial-and-error approach resulting from environmental checks only at the end of the process, directing the development towards more sustainable solutions from the beginning. To achieve this, the design and environmental analysis should be more integrated, as well as the respective tools. The project idea discussed in this paper aims to overcome this barrier by defining an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) structure designed to carry Life Cycle Inventory data from Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools to Life Cycle Assessment tool. The idea is to exploit overlapping data between the CAD system and LCA instruments, which are currently not being considered. This process will contribute to the reduction of time required for data input and the amount of mistakes.

Keywords: CAD , Eco-design , LCA , LCI

Design for Sustainability (D4S) and LifeCycle Assessment (LCA) methods usually focus on one single aspect of sustainability at a time (e.g., environmental issues, ergonomics or costs) and are usually applied when the industrial system is already created, so that only corrective actions can be taken. In this context, the present research highlights the need of predictive methods to design sustainable system, able to provide an early holistic assessment from the early conceptual stages, and defines a set of models of impact able to assess all aspects of sustainability (i.e., environmental, economic and social) by proper key performance indicators (KPIs) from the early design stages. An industrial case study is presented to show the application of the proposed models on industrial manufacturing systems and demonstrate their validity in estimating the global impact on sustainability, including also human factors.

Keywords: Design for Sustainability , Design Methods , Human Factors , Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) , Lifecycle analysis , Sustainable Manufacturing

Over the years cost optimization has gained a strategic importance to realize competitive products. However, traditional approaches are no longer efficient in modern highly competitive industrial scenarios, where numerous factors have to be contemporarily considered and optimized. In order to be effective, design has to care about cost along all its phases. This paper presents a methodology that integrates Design-To-Cost (DTC), Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA), Human Factors (HF) and Feature-Based Costing (FBC) to include costs from the early conceptual design stages and properly drive the product design. Thanks to a structured knowledge base and a FBC approach, it predicts both manufacturing and assembly processes from the 3D geometrical models and estimate the global costs, more accurately than existing tools. The research demonstrates the method validity by an industrial case study focusing on cost optimization of packaging machines. Thanks to the proposed method, the main design inefficiencies are easily identified from the early design stages and optimization actions are taken in advanced, in respect to traditional design process. Such actions allowed reducing total industrial costs of 20%, improving machine assemblability and human ergonomics due to structure simplification, part number reduction, and production processes modification, and reducing the time spent for cost estimation (until -60%).

Keywords: Cost modeling , Cost optimization , Design-to-Cost (DTC) , Feature-Based Costing (FBC) , Knowledge-Based engineering (KBE)

Building energy simulation models are playing an increasing role in the construction industry and estate services and are constantly being improved. However, the accuracy and usability of simulation results is highly dependent on its inputs, many of which remain difficult to determine. Amongst inputs, the definition of occupant behaviour is recognized to be complex, and generally underestimated and neglected. With the trend towards increasingly energy efficient buildings, a proper representation of occupant presence and activities is becoming crucial in the design of buildings, which need to be comfortable, adaptable and resilient towards variable thermal loads. This paper presents a study of the occupancy of a university building in the UK in order to assess discrepancies between assumed and actual occupancy of the facility. Data has been obtained from a range of sources, including the Building Energy Management System, timetabling, and direct observation. The corresponding occupancy patterns have been simulated using DesignBuilder and EnergyPlus. Results indicate a potential energy saving in the order of 10% for set-up control that matches actual building occupancy more closely than current settings.

The number and breadth of eco-improvement methods has been steadily rising over the past decades to include design for X methods and more problem-solving oriented software, based on the Russian TRIZ methodology, and the integration of CAE software and optimization techniques. With such heterogeneous approaches, there is a need of a quantitative classification scheme to help the designer in choosing the best method for each environmental scenario. In the present paper, we propose a comparison and classification, based on the number of eco-guidelines and their distribution on standard impact categories, of 17 of the most known Eco-improvement methods. Furthermore, we propose an interactive selection software that gives the user the ability to exclude or give priority to some life cycle phases and impact categories; empowering him to select the most fitting eco-improvement method or to create a list of the relevant eco-guidelines across all the analysed methods.

Keywords: Classification , Ecodesign , LCA

This paper quantitatively reports about a practical method to improve both position accuracy and energy efficiency of Servo-Actuated Mechanisms (SAMs) for automated machinery. The method, which is readily applicable on existing systems, is based on the 'smart programming' of the actuator trajectory, which is optimized in order to lower the electric energy consumption, whenever possible, and to improve position accuracy along those portions of the motion law which are process relevant. Both energy demand and tracking precision are computed by means of a virtual prototype of the system. The optimization problem is tackled via a traditional Sequential-Quadratic-Programming algorithm, that varies the position of a series of virtual points subsequently interpolated by means of cubic splines. The optimal trajectory is then implemented on a physical prototype for validation purposes. Experimental data confirm the practical viability of the proposed methodology.

Keywords: Energy Efficiency , Position Accuracy , Trajectory Optimization , Virtual Prototyping

The paper presents an overview of the FORMAT methodology, an approach for technological forecasting capable of satisfying the need of manufacturing industries to better support decision-making processes in planning corporate strategies for R&D. The methodology has been developed within the FORMAT consortium, gathering partners from both industry and academia in a Marie-Curie EU funded project of the 7th Framework Programme - IAPP PEOPLE. The methodology is intentionally shaped as a generic one, so as to foster its adoption by the wider audience, but it suggests the adoption of several TRIZ techniques and models to support the forecast. Its exemplary application in the field of forming technologies for domestic refrigerators aims at showing its potential and viability in a real industrial context. The paper is supplemented by a case study in the white goods manufacturing (forming techniques for the inner liners of domestic refrigerators).

Keywords: Laws of engneering systems evolution , Logistic regression , Manufacturing technologies , S-curve analysis , Techological Forecasting , Vacuum forming

This paper proposes a new modelling framework aimed at overcoming the current limitations of existing techniques for the representation of products and processes within a Technology Forecasting study. Starting from the review of the available modelling approaches, the authors define system requirements as the key elements to represent both drivers and barriers for the evolution of technical systems, analysed in the context of a business process. The new proposal allows such requirements to be mapped in an integrated and scalable model connecting finished goods with the related business processes, so as to collect the knowledge from different experts and stakeholders in a unified and manageable description, thus reducing the risks due to uncertain and partial representation. The paper presents also an example of application in the field of pharmaceutical tablet manufacturing, focusing on the industrial processes requiring the granulation of pharmaceutical powders. An in-depth discussion about the emerged criticalities supports the definition of further developments to make this approach more repeatable and suitable for Technology Forecasting methodologies.

Keywords: Decision making , Process model , Product model , Technology evolution , Technology forecasting

The paper proposes an alternative approach to well-known feedback solutions, such as visual displays or warning sound messages, to make users perceptually aware of the energy consumption occurring when using a product. The approach is grounded on the use of multisensory feedback interfaces that are designed to make the user experience the consumption process directly during the interaction with the product. Such multisensory feedback should be intended as indications, rather then alarms, so as to naturally guide users towards a more sustainable behaviour. The daily task of opening the fridge door has been used as case study. All the steps followed to ideate and test the effectiveness of the designed multisensory interfaces are discussed. The results demonstrate how even simple stimuli, such as a gradual colour change of the fridge cavity from a cold to a warm one, may be able to reduce the time users keep the fridge door open.

Keywords: Design for behaviour change , Human behaviour in design , Multisensory design , Sustainability , User centred design

The actual growing world energy demand is generating strong attention to the energy efficiency and to the environmental sustainability. The residential sector is one of the most energy-intensive reaching about 25% of global energy consumption. Furthermore, it is difficult to understand the real energy use in residential buildings suggesting the development of methodologies and tools to monitor and assess their energy performances. Such an analysis requires defining all the actors, their interaction rules and the intelligent management of a large amount of data. In addition to this, the energy performances of the home environment are closely related to the specific case under investigation, in fact it imposes the analysis of the particular application scenario and the target users to extract parameters able to describe the building behavior. They are related to the technological characteristics of the systems, to the external environment (e.g. external temperature, solar irradiation, etc.) and to the user needs and habits. It introduces some complexities, because many of these data are difficult to find and to predict. Another cause of complexity was introduced by the information and communication technologies (ICT) that creates new relationship between home devices fostering the spread of smart systems. In this scenario, simulation tools have been developed to grasp the real energy performance of a building, but they require a high level of detail for the input data which are often difficult to find. Otherwise, other tools are built for much simplified simulations and typically addressed to inexperienced users neglecting the real complexities of the system. For this reason, the paper presents a new design approach that aims to develop knowledge-based tools with architecture able to simulate the real behavior of the building considering all the actors and their interaction rules, but at the same time containing the features that allow them to be used in fast simulations or by inexperienced users. One of the focuses is the development of an intelligent user interface that, when requested, is able to automate and simplify data entry process. It is particularly useful when the user does not know the necessary input data for the simulation, e.g. energy consumption profiles, detailed features of the building, etc. All the steps of the proposed approach are described in the paper. In the first section is highlighted how the key parameters have been found and how they are organized as creating a knowledge base, while in the second section is shown the operation of the smart user interface and of the simulation tool. The results demonstrate that the proposed knowledge-based approach generates real benefits by simplifying and speeding up the data entry. Furthermore, the study shows how the smart user interface allows performing complex simulations also to novice users.

According to the growing pressure on Sustainability issues from governances, manufacturing industries must pay their attention to optimize their processes. Anyway, it is necessary go behind this preliminary approach, extending the boundaries from the single company to the other actors that operate in the same supply chain. In this context, the paper proposes a methodology to increase the sustainability and to guarantee the traceability along the whole product supply chain. The methodology allows to model any supply chain, through the data collection from all the actors involved, and to measure the environmental sustainability, through the implementation of a distributed software system. The experimental case study, which involved a leather shoe supply chain, allowed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach in the selection of suppliers and in the optimization of the supply chain, taking into account the environmental aspects together with the other constraints such as design, costs and quality.

Keywords: Design for X (DfX) , Supply chain modelling , Sustainability , Traceability

Due to the increasing pressure of legislations and market, the environmental sustainability is becoming a key competitive factor for companies. In specific markets, as the Northern Europe one, customers are very careful on the quality and sustainability of products, thus companies has to design and manufacture green goods. In this context, there is a strong need of effective design tools and platform which allows to configure products applying the life cycle paradigm and with the "environment on mind". Currently in the market there are only few examples of products designed taking into account the ecodesign concepts. In particular, for mechatronic or energy using products only the use phase is usually considered and all the re-design strategies aim to reduce the energy consumption. This is essentially due to the fact that there is a lack of tools and design platforms, which are easy to use and well integrated with the traditional design tools and with the design processes of companies. This paper wants to demonstrate the usefulness of a set of interoperable eco-design tools, the G.EN.ESI platform, in supporting the re-design of a mechatronic product. The proposed case study, realized in collaboration with an Italian leading company in the sector of household appliances, focuses on the improvement of a domestic cooker hood with the final objective to obtain a more sustainable product. The in-depth experimentation, for the duration of more than 3 months, involved different stakeholders within the company (designers, environmental expert, etc.), with the aim to validate the G.EN.ESI platform tools in different phases of the re-design process. The case study showed that the use of the platform has supported the company in the identification of the environmental hot-spots and during the product re-design phase, considering the whole life cycle. The re-engineered cooker hood exhibits relevant improvements in the most important environmental and economic indicators (environmental impact, energy efficiency, disassemblability, recyclability, etc.). Also a detailed analysis of the platform usability has been performed in order to measure if the tools completely fulfil the expectations of the final users. Finally, the level of integration within the company processes has been evaluated with a dedicated questionnaire. The results of these last analyses showed that the G.EN.ESI platform is appropriate to support a company to improve the sustainability of their products without the needs to heavily alter the traditional design process.

To preserve proper growth of the planet, industries have to increase sustainability of produced good according to the compliance and governance regulations for NPD (new product development). Sustainability concerns economical, environmental and social aspects; among these issues, the last theme is the less argued in literature and this paper focuses on the social life cycle assessment of products. One of the crucial aspects of S-LCA, is the definition of impact categories and involved stakeholders. This work, proposes a new S-LCA methodology, according to UNEP/SETAC framework. After the clarification of stakeholders, categories and general notions already known on S-LCA, a test case is shown where the new approach is implemented. In this use case, stakeholders from an Italian product line are analysed, then categories of attribution of social impacts are outlined. The paper offers a step-by-step procedure useful to verify the S-LCA theories currently available on a practical industrial case, defining also weaknesses that might be addressed in future studies.

Keywords: S-LCA , Social life cycle assessment , Sustainability

Over the last years the sustainability issue has grown exponentially and it has involved several engineering areas, starting with the product sustainability, then to the factory sustainability, up to reach the entire Value Chain sustainability. Due to the continuous increasing of complex relations among factories, suppliers, and customers, a new method for investigating the entire Value Chain, considering its key partners, their requirements in terms of materials usage and energy consumption, and how these requirements influence the Value Chain sustainability is presented. This model will aim companies to define the criticalities inside the Value Chain relations and to develop possible improved scenarios.

Keywords: Energy and resources efficient use , Sustainable manufacturing , Sustainable value chain

The paper proposes a system to increase the environmental sustainability and to guarantee the traceability along the whole product supply chain. A methodology to efficiently model complex supply chains, share data between all the actors and measure the environmental sustainability, has been developed and implemented in a distributed software system. The experimental case study, realized in collaboration with a manufacturer of leather products, allowed demonstrating the effectiveness of the approach in the selection of suppliers and in the optimization of the whole supply chain, taking into account the environmental aspects together with the other constraints such as design, costs and quality.

Keywords: Life cycle assessment , Supply chain sustainability , Traceability

This study presents an approach for the evaluation of the energy efficiency and environmental impacts of a new modular and integrated system of renewable electricity generation and intelligent electrochemical storage systems, that allows auto-production and self-consumption of electricity in residential buildings. Homes with installed these renewable energy production systems are compared from an environmental and economic point of view, to the traditional ones, that draw electricity energy directly from the grid. In this context different scenarios are considered together with different configurations of power production and storage capacity, in order to compare different use cases. To this end, the environmental impact along all the life cycle of these systems is examined with the help of the SimaPro software simulation tool and quantitatively assessed.

Keywords: Energy efficiency , Environmental impact , Self-consumpion

The number and breadth of eco-improvement methods has been steadily rising over the past decades. However a lot of eco-friendly product are struggling to find their collocation on the market. This deficit is generally due to the high costs of the proposed solutions. TRIZ methodology offers a structured way to simplify a technical system, exploiting all resources within it and overcoming internal contradictions that could prevent his evolution. Unfortunately a complete TRIZ activity could be time-consuming and requires people skilled in the art. In the present paper, we propose a simplified scheme, conceived to facilitate the use of the resources, totally based on TRIZ. Not to substitute, but to get along and systematize eco-design. A case study is proposed to save water from the tap opening until hot water starts to flow, which is usually wasted. Starting from an Italian application (www.bluewatersaving.it) obtained through patent research, the method can make this solution cheaper and more robust. Considering that for a big house (120 m2, 4 people) the water saving is up to 120k litres per year, the benefit consequential to its adoption on the planet would be considerable.

Keywords: Design methods , Ecodesign , Sustainability , TRIZ

Eco-improvement tools aim at identifying the most critical areas of a product life cycle, thanks to eco-assessment techniques like LCA. The designer is then encouraged to intervene by modifying the product or the manufacturing process characteristics. However, even a slight change of the product life cycle can seriously affect other parts of the cycle itself. Usually, this influences are hard to predict. Only an expert of LCA could effectively anticipate the major repercussions of a life cycle alteration. However, with the introduction of abridged aLCA, life cycle analysis has become a tool for the common designer, which usually doesn't have the expertise to identify the great number of interdependences involved. In these cases, the designer's efforts in reducing product environmental impacts can be ineffective or even counterproductive. This paper proposes a method and tool, called contradiction prompter, which integrates TRIZ in Life Cycle Assessment. Once environmental criticalities are defined by LCA, a set of guidelines are suggested to intervene on the product. The contradiction prompter collects a set of predefined typical contradictions that can arise when adopting a specific guideline. This can limit the typical trial and error approach and reduce the risk of ineffective redesigns. The framework has been clarified through an exemplary case study, dealing with the redesign of a moped wheel.

Keywords: Contradicitons , Ecodesign , LCA , TRIZ