Design for sustainability

The present study aims at exploring how to turn information and communication technology (ICT) networked tools to supply cooperative added-value duties and ecocompatibility certifying activities, as competitiveness is the permanent goal, but ecosystem preservation is a nonremovable asset. The chapter is organized into four sections. The first introduces the basic sustainability paradigm shifts, to switch from the affluent to the thrifty communities, showing that the knowledge society critically affects this transition. The following section deals with the information framework requested to characterize the extended artefact (or product-service) on the life-cycle span, dismissal included. The subsequent section considers the collaborative networked organizations needed to support the ecoconsistency management of the extended artifacts by means of net concerns, under the direct oversight of independent certification bodies. The last section outlines trends in the economical, legal, political, and social surroundings, aiming at the appropriateness of Web platform options. © 2005, Idea Group Inc.

There is an urgent need for sustainability in markets and in our economic system. This need is in the face of a growing destruction of non-renewable resources and the ceaseless degradation of the environment. It is generated by affluent societies, relentlessly replacing tangible goods, and is based on wealth economics trading in new products to continue expanding well-being. Industrialised countries are facing the challenge of maintaining living standards, while lowering consumption. This paper describes the novel opportunity offered by trading off products-services, namely, enhanced products or extended deliveries, which include the life-cycle and recycling incumbents and supplies, with a transparent accounting of resource depletion. Product enhancement relates directly to information content, it is consistent with the wealth driven economics of the knowledge society, and it naturally leads to the description of manufacturing processes by KILT-models. There, in addition to investment I and labour L, both knowledge K and tangibles T are considered as independent productivity factors. In that context, the use of TYPUS-metrics is required to assess resource decay. This opportunity is related to extended enterprises and co-operative infrastructures. These provide a critical means to manage product life-cycles for sustainability with a measure of the resulting environmental impact. The developments are presented as innovative steps, necessary to enable eco-consistent changes with technological issues framed in coherent social and legal arrangements. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Extended enterprises , KILT-models , Method innovation , Sustainability , TYPUS-metrics

The delivery of manufactured goods may be specified as a function of four independent factors. In addition to the conventionally considered invested capital I and contributed labour L, know-how and technology K has been recently recognised as an important independent input to the economic system, while tangible resources T may be introduced to provide an accounting of material and energy depletion. In this paper, sets of technology-driven developments are considered based on these four independent factors while setting aside economic, social, legal and political considerations. Eco-consistency concepts are reviewed followed by a discussion of the basic green-engineering approach to eco-design. These discussions lead to more specific issues including a focus on the clear accounting of the consumption of tangible resources. Also considered is the trade-off between sustainability costs and technology benefits to manage production and enterprise growth aiming both at ecological safety and economical return. The conclusions address development strategies that will be important in the foreseeable future. An extensive reference list has been provided for this interdisciplinary field. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Eco-design , KILT-models , Method-innovation , Product-service , TYPUS-metrics

Current research trends are extending from partially integrated product and process modeling to life cycle modeling, in order to provide a framework and methodologies based on a holistic approach for the support of sustainable product development. Within given scope we are interested to investigate, if feature technology, introduced in the late seventies and developed over the paste twenty years provides the potential, if further enhanced, to be used as a means to provide basic integration for geometry related processes and models over different product life cycle stages. In a first approach, feature neighborhoods are developed and introduced as an extension, to foster evaluation of disassembly / reassembly on grounds of feature-based product descriptions. An attempt to support product maintenance and material recycling within life cycle modeling while investigating structural dimension and limits of improved feature models as a means of geometrybased model integration.