Sustainable Product Design and Development

Anoop Desai, Anil Mital

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367343217
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000246308
• Topic: Design
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development

This book outlines the process of sustainable product design and development. It presents design guidelines that help prolong the life of a product and minimize its environmental impact. These guidelines specifically enable product design for end-of-life (EoL) objectives such as reuse, recycling and remanufacturing. Sustainable Product Design and Development also presents mathematical models that will help the designer determine the cost of designing sustainable products. This cost can be computed early during the design stage of a product.

Sustainable Product Design and Development presents different ways and means by which a product can address all three pillars of sustainability—environmental conservation, social sustainability, and economic sustainability. Various case studies are incorporated in different chapters. Case studies on designing products for assembly, disassembly and remanufacturing have been presented in their respective chapters. The book also provides an overview of global environmental legislation to help the reader grasp the importance of waste management and sustainable product design.

This book is aimed at professionals, engineering students, environmental scientists, and those in the business environment.

1

Introduction

1.1Definition of Sustainability

In 1987, The Brundtland commission defined sustainability as “Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Fiksel et al., 1998).” The gist of sustainability is that all commercial activity, including product development, should preserve the quality of ecological and societal environment for future generations. Most commercial activity leads to consumption of natural resources. That is what enables us to meet our needs in the present. But natural resources have been dwindling for a while and environmental pollution has seen a drastic and meteoric rise. The situation is beginning to get dire, so much so that it has attracted the attention of lawmakers all around the world. It has prompted them to pass restrictive environmental legislation that puts the onus upon the manufacturer to address and curb the environmental impact of their products.

In short, sustainability tries to address two mutually conflicting goals: consuming natural resources in the present as well as conserving them for the future. The conflict can be stated thus: “How can you consume and conserve simultaneously?” And that is the dilemma.

In order to find the answer, the problem needs to be solved creatively. It is imperative that the process of sustainable product design constitutes paradigms that differ from conventional counterpart. Products will need to be designed in order to conserve material and energy. This can be achieved by designing products so that they are easy to reuse, recycle and remanufacture. This goal can in turn be met by incorporating design practices such as design for assembly, disassembly and maintenance into the product design process. These goals and design practices will be presented in detail in future chapters of this book.

Sustainability of a product is evaluated using the so-called triple bottom line also referred to as the three pillars of sustainability, namely: economic, environmental and social. Each of the three pillars needs to be assessed through quantitative criteria. Doing so enables the designer to truly comprehend to what extent their design solutions have been effective. We shall address each pillar in some detail as follows.

1.1.1Performance Evaluation of the Economic Pillar

Traditional metrics of economic performance include cash flow and profitability. However, for a commercial activity to be truly sustainable, this is not enough. As we have said earlier, the answer lies in solving the problem creatively. It is important to go over and beyond the call of duty. The following issues need to be addressed for economic sustainability (Fiksel et al., 1998):

•The utilization of material, energy, capital and human resources costs money. Often, it is difficult to foresee this cost. As a result, it is also referred to as hidden cost. This cost should be quantified.

•Industrial production and consumption impact the environment. This is referred to as external impact. The uncertain future costs associated with it should be estimated.

•It is also necessary to estimate life cycle costs and benefits incurred during the lifecycle of a product. These costs and benefits are incurred by a host of stakeholders such as customers, employees, communities and so on across a product or process lifecycle.

Industry is at the forefront of trying to solve the problem. Take the case of Chrysler Corporation, for example. During the process of designing several new automotive components, Chrysler took into account the direct cost associated with each design option. This cost was in fact a potentially hidden and contingent cost. The potentially hidden costs were evaluated using activity-based costing methods. The company developed proprietary risk factors to account for the contingent costs. For example, when developing an oil filter, they considered the possible liabilities associated with disposing used oil (Armstrong and White, 1997). It was realized that the design option with the lowest material and labor costs did not simultaneously have the lowest life cycle cost. This was due to the liability cost, which was classified as a hidden cost.

1.1.2Performance Evaluation of the Environmental Pillar

The environmental pilla...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Author Biographies
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Environmental Legislations
• 3 Design for Disassembly
• 4 Designing for Assembly
• 5 Designing for Maintenance
• 6 Consideration of Reuse, Recycling and Remanufacturing
• 7 Costing for Sustainable Product Design
• Index