Environmentally-Friendly Product Development

by Abele, Eberhard; Anderl, Reiner; Birkhofer, Herbert

• ISBN13: 9781852339036
• ISBN10: 1852339039
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-10-01
• Publisher: Springer Verlag

Summary

The modern market economy is founded on economic growth and increasing consumption of manufactured products, leading to over use of resources and environmentally-damaging pollution. We can help protect the environment by focussing on the entire life-cycle of each manufactured product. A holistic view of every stage and process of a product's life-cycle is needed in order to find sound solutions to adverse environmental effects and help us develop a new generation of eco-designed products. Environmentally-friendly Product Development introduces methods to improve the environmental characteristics of products. Every manufactured product has environmental impacts during its life-cycle. These arise in the product's manufacture, use, recycling and disposal. In the past designers have focussed only on technical and economical aspects when developing new products, taking into account market-conditions and their company's resources. However, designing a product in accordance with environmental demands requires that designers consider potential influences from all part of its life-cycle. The book describes an integrated approach that assists designers to develop environmentally-friendly products, illustrating the methods and tools with case studies. Process and information modelling, life-cycle assessment and ecological product optimisation are surveyed in detail. Unique to Environmentally-friendly Product Development is the introduction of the Eco Design Workbench - a computer based design environment that supports the designer during the product development process. Environmentally-friendly Product Development is a comprehensive survey of environmental design. Readers will learn about the complexity of ecological product design and be introduced to methods and tools that can minimise environmental impacts. As well as a practical guide for product designers and design engineers, the book will provide managers in industry with an introduction to the environmental costs involved in a manufacturing economy and signposts to how these may be limited.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	xiii
List of Tables	xxi
List of Contributing Authors	xxiii
Contributions Listed by Authors	xxv
List of Abbreviations	xxvii
1 Introduction	1	(8)
1.1 The Collaborative Research Center 392	2	(1)
1.2 The Basic Approach	3	(3)
1.3 General structure	6	(3)
2 Case Study Vacuum Cleaner: From Vision to Reality	9	(26)
2.1 Clarifying the Task	9	(10)
2.2 Conceptual Design	19	(7)
2.3 Embodiment and Detailed Design	26	(2)
2.4 Result: The Vacuum Cleaner Prototype	28	(5)
2.5 Conclusions	33	(2)
3 The Product Life Cycle	35	(92)
3.1 Material Processing	36	(14)
3.1.1 New Method for the Holistic Assessment of Material Processing	36	(11)
3.1.2 Material circulations for life cycle assessment of environmentally friendly products	47	(3)
3.2 Production	50	(42)
3.2.1 Method for Inventory Analysis of Production Processes	51	(4)
3.2.2 Forming Processes	55	(11)
3.2.3 Machining Processes	66	(10)
3.2.4 Surface Treatment of Metallic Work-pieces	76	(9)
3.2.5 Injection Moulding of Plastics	85	(7)
3.3 The Use Phase in Design for Environment	92	(14)
3.3.1 Structuring of the Use Phase	93	(5)
3.3.2 Methodical Support for Product Developers	98	(8)
3.4 End of Life	106	(13)
3.5 Know-how Provision via Activity Guidelines	119	(8)
4 Environmental Assessment	127	(28)
4.1 An Introduction to Life Cycle Assessment	127	(2)
4.2 Impact Assessment	129	(18)
4.2.1 The Methodology of Impact Assessment	129	(3)
4.2.2 Impact Categories	132	(2)
4.2.3 New Impact Categories for Product Design	134	(4)
4.2.4 Aggregation	138	(2)
4.2.5 Uncertainty in Environmental Assessment	140	(7)
4.3 Environmental Assessment in the Product Development Process	147	(8)
4.3.1 Widely-Used Methods for Simplified Environmental Assessment in Product Design	148	(2)
4.3.2 The Meta-Method Approach	150	(5)
5 From the Market to Holistically Optimised Product Concepts	155	(70)
5.1 Innovation Process and Sustainable Development	156	(14)
5.1.1 Integration of DIE in Companies	157	(4)
5.1.2 Findings and Derived Research Questions	161	(4)
5.1.3 The Sustainable Innovation Process	165	(5)
5.2 Marketability Issues of Environmentally Friendly Products	170	(14)
5.2.1 Consumer Behaviour and Environmentally Friendly Products	170	(2)
5.2.2 Perception and Purchase of Environmentally Friendly Products	172	(3)
5.2.3 Ecological Segments of Customers and Products	175	(2)
5.2.4 Knowledge Activation, Information and Buying Behaviour	177	(3)
5.2.5 Enhancing the Attractiveness of Environmentally Friendly Products	180	(3)
5.2.6 Conclusion	183	(1)
5.3 Ergonomics in Environmentally Friendly Product Design	184	(10)
5.3.1 Background	184	(1)
5.3.2 Methodological Issues	185	(4)
5.3.3 Empirical Research Program	189	(2)
5.3.4 Conclusion	191	(3)
5.4 Requirements for Environmentally Friendly and Marketable Products	194	(12)
5.4.1 Quality Function Deployment (QFD) - Translating Customer Specifications into Product Characteristics	194	(2)
5.4.2 Life Cycle Quality Function Deployment (LC-QFD)	196	(6)
5.4.3 Interrelation Matrix	202	(2)
5.4.4 Strategy Portfolio	204	(1)
5.4.5 Extended Requirements List	205	(1)
5.5 Systematic Concept Development	206	(13)
5.5.1 Strategy-Based Design for Environment	207	(3)
5.5.2 Stepwise Concretising of Principle Solutions	210	(4)
5.5.3 Comparative Evaluation of Product Concepts	214	(2)
5.5.4 Size-Ranged Products	216	(3)
5.6 Interdisciplinary Teamwork in Product Development	219	(6)
5.6.1 Task-Related Diversity as Main Characteristic of Interdisciplinary Teams	219	(1)
5.6.2 Benefits of Task-Related Diversity	220	(1)
5.6.3 Drawbacks of Task-Related Diversity	221	(2)
5.6.4 Interventions	223	(2)
6 From Concept to Application	225	(62)
6.1 Integrated Model for Sustainable Product Design	227	(32)
6.1.1 Integrated Approach of CRC 392	227	(2)
6.1.2 State-of-the-Art: Methods and Tools	229	(5)
6.1.3 The Information Model in CRC 392	234	(3)
6.1.4 Methodology for Development of an Information Model	237	(11)
6.1.5 Methods and Tools for Modelling the Integrated Model	248	(11)
6.2 The ecoDesign Workbench	259	(23)
6.2.1 Requirements for an Integrated IT Environment	260	(5)
6.2.2 Architecture of the ecoDesign Workbench	265	(5)
6.2.3 Life Cycle Assessment for Computer Aided Design (LCAD)	270	(12)
6.3 Evaluation of the Usability of the ecoDesign Workbench	282	(5)
6.3.1 Usability as Main Objective	282	(1)
6.3.2 Formative Approach	282	(1)
6.3.3 Previous Studies	283	(1)
6.3.4 Method	283	(1)
6.3.5 Results	284	(2)
6.3.6 Key Conclusions	286	(1)
7 Final Summary	287	(6)
References	293	(22)
Index	315