Design for sustainability

In recent years International and Communitarian directives have focused their attention on the problem of energy consumption. In this context electric motors play a key role and designers must improve products considering this direction. This paper presents an innovative platform, called EROD (Energy Reduction Oriented Design), which consists of multiple software modules with different functionalities to support the whole design process of electric motors. The goal of EROD platform is to achieve energy efficient and sustainable electric motors and related devices. The platform facilitates knowledge and data sharing among design team members, it arranges the workflow activities and finally it promotes collaborative design sessions. All functionalities are implemented within the same web-based platform. This guarantees interoperability among different tools and leads up to significant reduction of development time due to the elimination of errors and iterations. The platform was tested to design five innovative electric motors for industrial and household applications. Results show that the new developed motors improve current solutions in terms of energy efficiency and environmental impact during use. © 2011 IEEE.

Keywords: collaborative design , efficiency , electric motors , environmental impact , optimization

Nowadays, the globalisation complex and confused scenarios show that the industrialism cycle has arrived to an impasse; sustainable and long-lasting progress requests strong changeovers. The technology challenge needs solving the over-pollution and over-consumption figures of the current industrialism: to that purpose the world ought to radically modify the political set-up moving to global village sustainable growth, ruled by <the force of the law> and turning to <hyper-democracy>, to assuring balanced citizen/authority interplay.

Keywords: Economic globalisation , Hyper-democracy , Knowledge society , Social-ecology-economy-cognitive global views

The engineer's doings in the new millennium have to cope with the ecological quality objectives, claimed by requirements for sustainable long-term growth; the challenge is extraordinary and involves socio-cultural aspects, too. Here, an overview of the state of the arts is flashed, in particular addressing: - the design of 'product-service' items, deliberately considering the early specifications for the lifecycle and the dismissal phases and: - the integration prerequisites in the supply chain management, explaining the usefulness of networks aids and the connected commercial modifications. The discussion, although offering sketchy suggestions, concerns the proper assessing of the life cycle eco-coherence as utter entrepreneurial challenge: the business design prerequisites incorporate legal issues, so it is not sufficient they are separately dealt with outside the firm. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.

Keywords: Extended Enterprise , Integrated Design , Lifecycle Eco-compliance , Product-Service , Reverse Logistics

The XXI century engineer's activity is deemed facing the eco-targets required by the sustainable growth mandatory requirements. The technical challenge is impressive, not less than the socio-cultural efforts. The paper presents a survey of the state of the arts, especially discussing: the development requirements at the product-service design phases, purposely dealing with the lifecycle and end-of-life key prerequisites; the integration conditions at the supply chain management phases, wittingly discussing the networking aids and related business changes. The presentation is limited to important hints. The usefulness of the discussion concerns the consideration of the lifecycle eco-consistency as total entrepreneurial challenge: it is not enough to separately tackle the design prerequisites out of the enterprise integration, with all needed functions and facilities; and vice-versa.

Keywords: Extended enterprise , Integrated design , Lifecycle eco-compliance , Product-service , Reverse logistics

In this work a method for identifying the key points and supporting an eco-design activity for SMEs is presented. Amongst the different concurrent approaches in the literature, Active Innovation Management (AIM), is currently developing, jointly with the University of Bergamo, an integrated approach based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and TRIZ eco-guidelines. The main goal of this integration is to simplify the eco-design approach in order to make it accessible to European small medium enterprises (SMEs). All activities are part of a European Community (EC) project called REMake. The proposed method consists of a preliminary scan of a given product or process in order to disclose all involved flows of material and energy, and to assess its environmental impact by means of traditional LCA indexes. The hot points of the process are then identified adding to classical LCA criteria a brand new index, called the "IFR index", conceived from the TRIZ "Ideal System" concept. Once key points are identified, a set of 330 eco-design guidelines are introduced to develop alternatives and modifications to the given system with the aim of providing a lower global environmental impact. A first version of those guidelines [3, 8, and 9] was conceived starting from the eight natural Laws of Evolution of Technical System (LTSE) introduced by Altshuller [10]. Here an extended version allows the user to work in each phase of the product life cycle, and integrates other TRIZ tools and best eco-practices. Preliminary results of the application in SMEs will be presented with a case study concerning a textile home-furnishings and bed linen painting company. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

This paper presents a new 3D design paradigmfor the development of specific custom-fit products, such as the soft socket of prostheses for lower limb amputees. It is centered on the digitalmodel of the human body and, contrarily to the traditional process almost manually based, it considers the integration of methods and tools coming from different research and application fields: Reverse Engineering, Medical Imaging, Virtual Prototyping, Physics-based Simulation, and Rapid Prototyping. The paper describes the techniques adopted to acquire and create the digital model of the residual limb, the procedure to generate the socket model, the strategy developed for the functional simulation of the socket-stump interaction and, finally, the realization of the physical prototype. Each design step is described with the related problems and the obtained results. Both trans-tibial and trans-femoral amputees have been considered; however, for now the complete process has been validated for trans-tibial prostheses. Major outcomes of the proposed approach stand in a better quality of the final product, in a shorter involvement of the amputee implying a lower psychological impact, in a limited use of physical prototypes, and in a shorter development time. Moreover, the resulting paradigm answers to the Collaborative Engineering guidelines by optimizing the interaction between different domains and enhancing their contributions in a homogeneous development framework. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Custom-fit products , Human-centric soft product design , Physics-based modeling for soft products , Prosthesis development process

The majority of soft pads for robotic limbs studied so far were made by visco-elastic polymeric solids whose behavior is significantly influenced by the rate of application of the external loads or displacements. In particular, contact interfaces which are intrinsically visco-elastic are found, for instance, in human fingers and feet or in various robotic devices covered by a compliant surface. An outstanding instance are anthropomorphic hands where time-dependent phenomena profoundly affects the stability and sustainability of the grasp. Alternatively to homogenous solid pads, this paper proposes the use of fluid filled soft structures with differentiated layer design [1] that is the adoption of a single solid material, dividing the overall thickness of the pad into a continuous skin layer coupled with an internal layer having communicating voids. The voids are then hermetically sealed and, in case, filled with fluid. Given the allowable pad thickness, the purpose is to tailor the pad properties to the specific application by 1) selecting a skin material characterized by proper tribological features, 2) designing an inner layer geometry so as to obtain a specific static compliance, 3) filling the pad with a viscous fluid chosen so as to modify time-dependent phenomena and increase damping effects. The proposed concept is validated by designing artificial pads whose viscoelastic properties are either similar or more pronounced when compared to those of the human fingertip. ©2010 IEEE.

Keywords: Experimental analysis , Human fingers , Robotic hands , Soft fingertip design

In the Approach Control Area an important match for reducing aviation environmental impact is played. Aircraft Sequencing Problem (or Aircraft Landing Problem) has been widely studied for the last years in order to find the optimal sequence that maximizes the number of landing aircraft in the time unit. The model we propose is based on no-wait Job- Shop Scheduling with sequence dependent machine set up time and release date. In our model STAR and SID are divided into air segments: runways and air segments of arrival and departure procedures are modeled as machines, airplanes are considered as job with release date. Each machine i processes an Aircraft/Job and produces a cost for the environment. The impact of the pollution in each element of the grid map depends on the related machine. The "green" sensitivity of each grid map element is defined by using numerical models. Starting from existing Job-Shop Scheduling models, by means of elitary Genetic Algorithm, the number of movements in the time unit is optimized to manage the Approach airspace. Finally, an experimental analysis is presented, it has been performed on a case study of Bologna airport terminal area.

Keywords: Aircraft sequencing , Job-shop scheduling

The millennium start deals with tangled globalisation scenarios, together showing that the industrialism cycle turns into a blind alley. The upcoming progress, requests drastic changeovers. The shortly recalled scenarios, to some extent, mention well assessed views, specifically, the economic and the écologie ones; in addition, suggest changeful visions, i.e., the social and the cognitive ones, to allow devising possible growth continuance.

Keywords: Knowledge Society , Social-Ecology-Economy-Cognitive Global Views , Sustainable Growth

The human progress is described as sustainable growth corollary. This has stable technology-driven solution, at the global village extension, thus, it requires appropriateness and shared acceptation. The survey, on such guess, looks at the robot age potential, as supplementary aid in the balanced world deployment that adds to the socio-economic and politico-legal frames. The analysis moves from the globalisation issues, at the known (economic) global and (ecologic) no-global pictures, to show that the alternatives worked out due to the extant political settings cannot enjoy stability, even if imposed by the law of the force. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.

Keywords: Economy vs Ecology Prospects , Globalisation & World Stability , Knowledge Society , Social Change Models , Technology & Environment

The human progress is described as sustainable growth corollary. The latter has only technology-driven solution, at the global village extension, thus, requiring appropriateness and shared acceptation. The survey, on such guess, looks at the robot age potential, as supplementary aid in the balanced world deployment that adds to the socio-economic and politico-legal frames. The stability based on the law of the force was past option, even allowing steady truces; the globalisation, in our analysis, makes the choice unfit, having doubtful economic and social sustainability and not achieving ecologic sustainability on the required long term horizons. The extant guesses based on the global or the no-global views are recognised lacking stability. Here, we outline the traits of the post-global robot age, consistent with the sustainable growth, and, there through, with the international stability grounded on the force of the law. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.

Keywords: Economy vs Ecology Prospects , Globalisation & World Stability , Knowledge Society , Social Change Models , Technology & Environment

It is well known that the global market is driving companies towards new productive paradigms oriented to product customization, agility and environmental sustainability. Companies have to face the problem of providing as much product variety as possible in order to rapidly satisfy a wide number of specific market segments. Even if the emerging automated agile production environments could enable them to manage product variety, in many productive fields, large waste streams, due to the practical difficulty of adapting the traditional production lines to product changes, are still present. At the same time a growing public concern for the environment, is forcing companies to investigate alternative uses for waste material. In this paper we present a practical example from the footwear industry in order to show how companies can successfully apply the concept of sustainable production taking into account the mass customization requirements but contemporarily reducing the material waste. The approach is focused on the combination in the same plant of two different production lines: one is dedicated to the primary production while the other uses the waste material to realize the secondary production. Copyright © 2008 by ASME.

The application of life cycle assessment (LCA) is usually aimed at products where most parameters relating to architecture, processes and materials are defined and known. However, application of conventional LCA for products or services that are incomplete in their specification is quite difficult or even impossible, if too many significant parameters are unknown. In our previous work targeting the development of eco-design tools, an approach integrating LCA methodology with the concept of product modularity has been introduced. In this paper, further improvements of this novel approach, being based on fuzzy logic and its application, are presented. In this context, fuzzy logic is being used to increase user friendliness of the interface while avoiding any circumstances of compromising the precision of quantitative results computed. A set of fuzzy attributes, membership functions and an inference algorithm are used to evaluate the modification of design parameters of modular products regarding their influence on environmental impact indicators. Copyright © 2009 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Keywords: AFF , Alternative function fulfilment , Fuzzy logic , LCA , Life cycle assessment , Modular product architecture , Sustainable manufacturing

The eco-protection acts imply reorganising the manufacture business, towards product-service supply chains. The innovation can be tackled at two ranges: - the presetting of the knowledge management surroundings, to deal with the extended producers' responsibility; - the incorporation of the entrepreneurial facility/function assembly, to accomplish the product-service delivery. The paper surveys the knowledge management frame, specifying the standard PLM aids, with account of the PLM-SE and PLM-RL requirements, giving especial attention on the alternative net-concern options, from virtual, to extended enterprises infra-structures.

Keywords: Knowledge management , Lifestyle design , Product-service , Reverse logistics , Service engineering

The growth sustainability requires dramatic changes to lower the natural resources consumption and the surroundings pollution, by recovery/remediation processes. The EU policy aims at the extended producers/suppliers responsibility, with effective charges on the products allowed to be put on the market, used and called-back, in view of the properly small impact and transparent lifecycle acknowledgement. This leads to «extensions» in designing the new offers with integrated monitoring and service functions. The design for the lifecycle eco-effectiveness is accomplishment, better qualifying the far-seeing companies according to the EU eco-policy. The idea is to reach the duty visibility, by the extended plug-and-play concept, based on series of integrated design options, assigning the structural and functional modules, for the operation monitoring, the reliability assessment and the impact appraisal. This instrumental setting includes intangible information/communication aids, to confer ambient intelligence abilities. This way, the on-process visibility is assured, and exploited for on-duty servicing and end-of-life processing. The example case chosen deals with the critical situation of the parts manufactured in plastics, which are deemed to represent most relevant portion in the cars to come. The following recovery options are possible: - the reuse of the reconditioned items, according to suitably assessed life-extension opportunities; - the recycling of the warn-out components, with the regeneration and reusing of the materials; - the thermal recovery of residual stuffs, within careful handling and pollution-safe warnings ; - the reduction to registered ASR, automobile shredding residue, within the EU directives limits. The on-board information system includes, as innovative feature, the resort to identifying tags or labels, to be read and written through wireless links. The technology exploits cheap and compact supports, allowing the labelling of the component, from production, to lifecycle, with an identifying code. The RFID, Radio Frequency Identification Device, is privileged, as ideal means for the component traceability and the history, use modes/styles and cumulated issues storing.Copyright © 2008 by ASME.

Early human civilizations developed along water corridors. With increasing dependency of human activities on energy, sustainability of future civilizations would be largely linked to sustainability of energy resources and systems. The tie between energy and socio-environmental sustainability, though obvious remains nebulous mostly because, neither energy nor sustainability are clearly defined. While thermodynamic definition of energy is relatively clear, its nature (as linked to human activities and sustainable development) is not well understood. This paper is an attempt to present a metric for the components and attributes of energy resources and technologies as interfaced with human civilization. A fuzzy logic model is used to scale energy systems based on their valued attributes (such as storability, transformability, quality, transportability, availability, environmental value and resource sustainability). The model is used to predict future energy corridors and their association with economical growth and sustainability. It is shown that green energy systems should be developed not in isolation but integrated in intelligent "synergetic" systems to meet the energy demands of future human civilizations. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Keywords: Fuzzy Metric , Renewable Energy , Sustainability

The product lifestyle design is necessary sustainable growth accomplishment, enforced by the enacted eco-regulations. The paper discusses the incumbent restructuring of the manufacturing companies, recalling the innovation at the design phase, by effective product-process-environment-enterprise, 2P2E, integration, supported by suitably detailed modelling and simulation features, M&SF, leading to information intensive value chains based on: - net-concerns, gathering and enabling business set-ups, from the facility/function market; - service dealers, for the extended enterprise added value operations; & recovery rulers, for reverse logistics accomplishments and tasks overseeing. A short outlook of the topics is sketched, and, for explanatory purposes, example developments are recalled, referred to industrial situations emerging from the recent EU environmental policy. © 2008 International Federation for Information Processing.

Keywords: Extended enterprise , Lifecycle diagnostics , Lifestyle design , Modelling & simulation features , Reverse logistics

The product design methodologies and practices are expected to face in the short future important changes, to deal with the lifecycle requirements of the growth sustainability. These changes aim at granting the visibility over the points-of-service, in connection with the on-duty conformance-to-specification tests, and at the point-of-dismissal, to comply with the enacted recovery (reuse, recycle) rules. To that purposes, the major innovations develop along complementary lines: to establish appropriate knowledge frames, which embed lifecycle economy of scope proper orientation; to exploit modelling and simulation functions M&SF, which provide the pertinent product-view specialisation. The paper offers an introductory overview of these lines, to address the design practice management requirements, by a multi-disciplinary approach, with concern on available information technology CAD tools that embed algorithmic and heuristic blocks to offer mixed mode simulation-and-emulation aids, and PLM tools that explore Ambient Intelligence and net-concerns to tackle with the on-duty and end-of-life services provision.

Keywords: Lifestyle eco-design , Modelling & simulation , Net-concern , Product-service

As experience in EcoDesign increases, academic and industry thinking is moving towards the more advanced stages of EcoDesign; moving away from product improvement and product redesign into the more holistic approaches of Alternative Function Fulfilment (AFF) and system innovation. This paper investigates how modularity concept, applied to product design, allow much degrees of freedom for the designer, more possibility to reduce environmental impact related to product life-cycle and increase the interaction between LCA and the earlier stages of the (Eco)design process. A method, based on the product modularity concept, to increase LCA usability for the designers is proposed in this paper.

Keywords: Alternative Function Fulfilment , Ecodesign , LCA , Modularity

The sustainable development of our societies is one of the priorities of the European Commission. Through its new Integrated Product Policy (IPP), the European Commission is developing a series of measures that influence the supply and demand of environmentally sound products. Some IPP tools are based on product and process self-declarations, while others require the performance of a Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA). Life-Cycle Inventory (LCI) data availability is the fundamental premise in order to be able to perform an LCA. In this paper we report the work we have done to investigate the diffusion of required LCA data along the supplier chain with the aim of identifying strategies to increase the awareness of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in respect to LCA, to suggest methodologies to facilitate the collection of sound LCI data and to test available low-cost software tools to support LCA, with particular reference to the production phase. © 2005 IEEE.

Keywords: Environmental product declaration , Life-cycle assessment data , Small and medium enterprise