Advances in Life Cycle Engineering for Sustainable Manufacturing Businesses

Enhancing reusability by extending a product’s life and improving its functions by means of frequent model changes creates a contradictory issue in implementing reuse scenarios that reduce the environmental load in closed-loop manufacturing. This paper proposes a concept of module-based model change planning as a solution to this problem. In the paper, a method of identifying relationships between customer satisfaction and modules based on conjoint analysis and a QFD method is proposed first. Then a procedure for generating a module-based model change plan, which creates the minimum environmental load, is discussed. The proposed method is applied to copying machines as an illustrative example.

The seriousness of environmental impacts of products and processes justifies the introduction of stricter regulations. This paper examines, through literature research initially, why eco-innovation is the approach industry should adopt and evaluates strategies through the lessons learned from a real case study. The paper, as a useful guide, is intended to motivate businesses to integrate eco-innovation into their product plans so that they not only reduce the environmental impacts of their products and processes, but also provide value to the customer.

In order to identify and bring answers to the problematic of sustainable development posed to the industrials, we develop a methodology aiming at designing sustainable products, which we define as clean and recoverable. In order to help designers to integrate the environmental criteria in the decision making process which will lead to the choice of a design alternative, they need to have access to robust indicators based on environmental assessment of the product and its associated end-of-life scenario. In this article we propose in a first part to model the product as an assembly of components lifecycles in order to build pertinent indicators for designers. Then we develop the concept of “lifecycle bricks” which permits to easily build the products life over many usage cycles, and thus allow on one hand to measure the benefits or loss of one strategy, and on the other hand to gradually focus until the environmental hot spots of the products have been revealed.

This paper proposes a method for describing product life cycle scenario and a description support system for the life cycle scenario. Our idea is that a designer can determine the life cycle strategy easily by describing the life cycle scenario at the early stage of life cycle design. We define a representational scheme of the life cycle scenario and develop the support system by using the idea of the design rationale. As a result, it is clarified that the life cycle scenario is successfully represented on a computer and a designer can easily determine the life cycle strategy by using this system.

End-of-life products are taken back constrainedly by the laws and disassembled to a mass of reusable parts. Design for reusing these taken-back parts into new products has more constraints than conventional design. A new method based on the set theory and constraint digraph is proposed to model design for taken-back parts reuse and to get all feasible designs. The eco-cost which considers product cost and eco-efficiency of parts reuse concurrently is applied to get an optimal design. A structural design of stamping mold is examined as a case for the validity of the proposed method.

The Interpretation phase of Life Cycle Assessment raises important issues, both from a theoretical and an application point of view, particularly if a decision-making procedure is involved during this phase. In this paper, an advanced web-based collaborative decision-making tool, which includes several argumentation and knowledge management features, will be presented. Argumentative discourses, which may be carried out through this tool, can be utilized in order to arrive at collaborative decisions. The paper will demonstrate the utilization of the tool for Life Cycle Interpretation.

Remanufacturing of products is already a profitable business field, but the potential is not fully exploited yet. Complex and manual processes, missing product information, high spare-part costs, quality problems as well as technological and stylistic obsolescence are the main obstacles for profitable remanufacturing. Vital elements for sufficient remanufacturing are efficient adaptation processes as well as advanced product design. Modularity is introduced as an approach to improve product design. For the development of appropriate modular product architectures, a methodology for the development of use-oriented modular product architectures based on module drivers is illustrated. A procedure for identifying future-robust requirements necessary for the specification of the module drivers is proposed. The approaches are finally discussed in the case study development of a Modular Mobile Phone Kit.

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.

Nowadays the importance of the environmental sustainability of industrial products has become significant because of the ever-stricter environmental legislation in the field, and thanks to the higher awareness of customers concerning environmental problems. The development of sustainable products leads engineers to take into considerations environmental aspects in concurrency with traditional technical and economical aspects since the beginning of design activities. It is clear, then, the importance of using a suitable design framework for the products’ development. The output of the study consists of the development of easy-to-use guidelines, which is able to indicate in practice to designers the addresses that can be followed for a more effective action.

With the productive mode changes from mass production to mass customization, the design for environment (DFE) method has to be adapted to it. The purpose of this study is to realize green design in mass customization mode. In this study, the process of the DFE method in MC mode is systematically discussed, then a concept of green product information model is proposed to support the design process. A product configurator for DFE is presented in detail, at last a green design of refrigerator was used as exemplification of the method.

Under the legislative pressure and to deal with an economy of raw materials and energy used to transform this matter, designers have to consider more deeply the aspects related to the disassembly of the products for recycling, remanufacturing or reuse. Indeed, these “recoveries” of product/components/materials will modify the production and recycling processes as well as the design choices. In particular, the disassembly operations have to be taken into account in the first stages of the product design, during the conceptual design phase, to obtain a good compromise concerning the final structure of the product. We will present in this article the principles for a future tool using virtual reality. This tool will be used during the conceptual phase of the design to assist the designer to jump from a functional model to the structure of the product by helping the definition of the components, of the connections and thus of the first structure of the product.

In 2004 the Vienna University of Technology and Siemens Transportation Systems in Vienna launched a project, called Green Line, focused on optimizing the environmental performance of metro vehicles. Green Line should create design strategies for a new generation of environmentally sound transport vehicles based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). As a reference project the new metro train for Oslo has been chosen. The improvement potentials indicated by the LCA are discussed in this paper to increase the environmental performance of the train. The recommendations given are discussed considering feasibility studies and prospective trends.

Active disassembly technology provides the designer a useful unmanned disassembly processes to achieve efficient recycling for products. Currently, many types of smart active fasteners are developed by using shape memory plastics (SMP). This technology has been testing in cell phones and LCD TVs to confirm the concepts. This paper presents an eco-innovative design methodology by using TRIZ method to innovate the new concepts of smart active fasteners for active disassembly at the end-of-life stage of products. The tools of TRIZ, such as contradiction matrix, inventive principles, and substance-field analysis, are chosen in this study to develop this eco-innovative design methodology. Examples are demonstrated to illustrate the capability of proposed methodology.

In this paper, we present a project with the world leader of office furniture and workplace solutions. The goal is to build a decision-making tool combining a need model and a solution model to be used by designers and sales people to simulate different planning scenarios having different contributions to company performance. This decision-making tool is based upon a model of need (for a new workplace design project) and a solution need (roughly describing a solution sketch). We describe the ontology of the tool and illustrate with a case study about a decision making process in a limited perimeter of lighting system.

This paper aims to support the decision-making tasks regarding the integration of packaging development into product development. Based on the study of the interactions of the product and packaging during the whole product life cycle, a set of packaging-related factors was extracted and mapped to a general product development model, which at a strategic level can be used to define an integrated product development policy. At a tactical level, the mapping matrices are used to support the product development projects planning. At an operational level, they can be used to make packaging-related decisions during an ongoing product development project.

The aims of the Ecodesign subject are to provide students with theoretical knowledge and practical skills in designing new engineering products in accordance with ecological criteria. In this paper, the evolution over time of the subject is discussed, from the “common sense” application of product life cycle analysis to quantitative tools for analyzing alternative solutions and evaluating the final design. The subject’s syllabus, the organization of the classes, the projects carried out by the students and three examples of this subject are discussed. Finally, conclusions drawn from the experience of teaching this free elective subject are put forward.

The necessity for new insights regarding industrial ecodesign implementation is leading to an increase of interest for scientific knowledge from other disciplines which may provide such new insights. Research on success factors and obstacles for these introduction processes show the significance of the internal value chain of companies, in which human factors seem to play a significant role. A potentially contributing discipline in this field of the ‘human side’ of ecodesign is change management. This paper describes several aspects of change management; a cross-linking between the two latter disciplines is made. This leads to the formulation of several propositions, which might serve as a starting point for further research on this topic.

Mechatronic products are the result of combining the engineering disciplines mechanics, electrics, electronics and IT. This requires coordinated trans-sectoral cooperation from the people developing the product as well as from the organisational unit. However, the systematic development of mechatronic systems has special demands to a multidisciplinary and holistic development process. Therefore implementing appropriate methods and tools is decisive for an effective product development. This article deals with the approach of integrating discipline-specific processes, applications and partial data models according to the SOA principle, based on the experience of developing PLM methods in the automotive industry.

The new stake in design today is to examine the global purpose of the design activities. In this perspective, project design management not only consists in allocating resources, but also in stimulating collaboration among the actors involved in the project. Objective is to increase the performance of design teams. In this paper, we are interested in the factors influencing performance of the design system. We identify the elements of the design performance and propose a framework to manage design system evolution. A prototype of software formalising the exchanges in the design system during a design process is presented.

Pattern languages are an approach to provide common knowledge in an easily accessible way. They were originally invented in the 70s and first applied in civil and architectural design. During the last decade the approach has been commonly applied in the software community and gained a strong influence on many fields within computer science. In engineering design as well as Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) pattern languages have yet not been applied. This paper introduces the concept of pattern languages and describes approaches to apply pattern languages to PLM to develop a cohesive PLM theory integrating the several subareas of PLM.

This article is focused on the integration between KBE (Knowledge Based Engineering) applications for Design Automation (DA) and companies’ data repositories managed by PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), and PDM (Product Data Management) systems. In particular, the authors conducted their research proposing a method to retrieve data or documents of pre-existing components from a document repository, before proceeding to design products. As result of that, designers save time spent in design, verifying loops and documents producing, thanks to the reuse of existing components or product. In order to illustrate their approach, the authors developed an application where the KBE system checks the availability of existing components or products before let the designer proceed to design. New produced documents are stored into the data repository for next design activities.

The paper is organized as following: first, it starts with the description of some relevant aspects in engineering design: product and process representation, knowledge reuse and sharing, PDM and KBE functionalities; then, the paper continues analyzing the functionalities of KBE and PDM system in order to introduce the issue of the integration; third, it goes on describing the approach followed by the authors; next, it describes the application above mentioned and performed by the authors on these topics; finally, the results of the work are reported.

The objective with this paper is to, from several perspectives including those found in the traditional Design for Environment (DfE) literature, compare and evaluate advantages and disadvantages between the concepts of DfE and Integrated Product and Service Engineering (IPSE). Lessons learned from the use of DfE have been integrated into the IPSE methodology.

One conclusion is that IPSE is a promising approach to take the environmental related requirements that DfE tries to promote one step further, i.e. to be better integrated with other types of offering-related requirements. In short, IPSE opens up for a more balanced development of offerings.

Servicification is a key toward environmental conscious business in the secondary industry. This paper aims at demonstrating the ability of a CAD system, which has been developed with the name Service Explorer, to represent services by manufacturers. To do so, services of renting and cleaning home appliances, which a manufacturer recently provide in Japan, were applied as an example. As a result, the system has been proved to provide the environment for a designer, for instance, to describe effectively the value for a service receiver and its realization medium.

Integrated product-service offerings put new requirements on products in comparison to traditional selling. To reduce costs, products need to e.g. be easy to perform repairs on. The aim of this paper was to elucidate how Swepac International has worked with adapting their soil compactors for these offerings. In several cases Swepac has reduced the need of repair and remanufacturing efforts. Furthermore, the aim was also to evaluate the design of a specific soil compactor (FB-200H). Several design improvements were elucidated e.g. introduce snap-fits for a cover, standardise screws, and introduce a drainage hole on a hydraulic oil tank.

Previous research has proposed a novel approach in dealing with services; we have called this new field service engineering. But difficulties in converting actual service activities into service engineering models have been encountered. These difficulties were caused by the absence of concrete and detailed method in analyzing service operations. Thus, a detailed method of analyzing service activities is proposed to formalize the framework necessary to make analyzing service activities easier. The framework for analyzing service activities is based on the phases of the service encounter as well as the method of hierarchical task analysis.

This article describes the paradigm change from the separated view of product and services to a new product understanding consisting of integrated industrial product-service-systems (IPS

2

) which establish innovation potentials to increase the competitiveness of mechanical engineering and plant construction. Thus allowing business models where the customer use, e.g. in the form of highly available machines and plants, and not the selling of the machine is of central interest. This article describes the field of operation and solution approaches for the method-supported design and automated execution of the service proportion of IPS

2

.

In an evolving business environment, many organizations are changing their product offering from the supply of predominantly physical goods to the delivery of product-service systems. The resulting need to support both physical goods and associated services throughout their lifecycles has a number of implications. This paper focuses on the changing requirements of engineering information systems caused by the need to represent both physical goods and associated services. Key characteristics that differentiate service offerings from physical goods are surveyed. The impact of these characteristics on the design of the engineering information systems that facilitate the delivery of product-service systems are outlined. The research reported in this paper draws together theories from engineering product definition and service blueprinting approaches that have traditionally been used to capture service products in the hospitality and financial sectors. Early results from the use of the service blueprinting method in defining technical services are presented and approaches to integrating product and service definitions are explored.

Technical services aim at enhancing the economical and ecological performance of industrial products. To systematically exploit their potentials for both manufacturers and their industrial customers, products and services need to be integrated. Thereby, Life Cycle Management (LCM) provides a promising starting point. On the basis of corresponding methods, important fields of action, regarding the implementation of the resulting industrial Product-Service Systems (PSS) in the investment goods industry, can be identified with respect to customer-oriented PSS planning, integrated PSS development, knowledge based PSS control and life cycle-oriented process management. This article therefore introduces a novel concept for PSS-LCM and describes important elements thereof.

It is expected to establish International Resource Recycling System (IRRS) for dealing appropriately with environment concern. Because, Asian countries have been rapidly growing economically in recent years, whereas environmental problems have become more serious. They have become global, complicated and beyond control of a single country. Fuji Xerox established the “Recycling-Site” in Thailand as an integrated recycling center over the Asia-Pacific region and built the worlds’ first full-fledged “IRRS” of its own accord In December 2004. It overcame numerous barriers, including the differences in organizational and social values Among nations. We reviewed and analyzed direction, factors, structures and essences of this system for its success.

Equipment finance is becoming a crucial task in the manufacturing sector, where the value of production systems can be considerable and the appropriate financing choice can impact on company competitiveness for years. Several variables, requiring new interdisciplinary competencies and approaches, have to be evaluated by companies while taking financial decisions. A survey realised in “Next - Next Generation Production Systems” FP6 European project revealed that a new financial culture and adequate instruments are needed to sustain European manufacturing competitiveness. This paper proposes a structured approach for the selection of suitable financial methods supporting the acquisition of production capacity in the frame of innovative manufacturing business models.

Energy use is an important metric of environmental impact and manufacturing efficiency. However, a major component of energy analysis has yet to permeate life-cycle analysis methodology: the energy use associated with human labor. This paper presents a straightforward method of estimating the energy demands of an hour of industrial labor based on readily available national statistics. In the United States, this estimate yields 30 MJ of primary energy use per worker-hour (EPWH). These results can be applied to inform and expand the application of process-based and hybrid economic input-output life-cycle assessment.

Production companies act in increasingly complex and dynamic environments. Facing numerous influencing and closely interconnected factors within production systems, companies are forced to cope with economic and to an increasing degree with ecological objective criteria in order to meet market and legal demands. This leads to complex decision situations regarding planning, operation, and optimization efforts of production systems. This paper presents an integrated framework for production system analysis that allows to analyze the interrelations between economic and ecological factors in the context of production system optimization.

Forming technologies and deep drawing in particular play a key role in Germany’s industry regarding quality, costs and time. The production system’s efficiency is thereby tremendously influenced both by timed and qualitative availability of press and die. A detectably higher availability resp. service life of the entire press-die-system along with novel services for a condition-oriented press and die maintenance represent a solution to the actual dilemma. Furthermore new service models to optimize the spare parts management as well as business models, e.g. pay-per-piece, are additional options. In a consortium of industry and university within the research project

Smart Stamping

, the Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) at RWTH Aachen University is to create the necessary preconditions for such offerings.

Today’s turbulent economic environment confronts German tool and die makers with new challenges. To compete with China and with the new eastern members of the European Union, German companies must come up with innovative products and services to stand out from their competitors. New types of business models shall offer individual solutions to the customers, integrating product and services to a hybrid product. Within the research project

TecPro

, ‘intelligent’ tools which are to deliver completely new data from the production process will be developed. With their help, business models for technology-based product-servicesystems are to be designed.

This paper reports the findings of a study of the current innovation and environmental considerations of six businesses that design and manufacture products affected by the product-related environmental legislation. Activities undertaken with the businesses provide insights into their New Product Development (NPD) processes, their innovation capabilities and their actions to improve their environmental performance. Several features of their NPD processes are suggested as presenting opportunities for eco-design tools to be integrated into design practises without negatively affecting the current NPD process. Finally, a conceptual framework is proposed which highlights the inter-relations between business, environmental, and customer requirements of a product across its lifecycle.

Remanufacturing is driven by different factors (such as extended economic profits, reduced environmental loading, social inclusion and job creation) and opposed by various barriers (such as reverse logistics, customer perception, product disassembly and component inspection). This paper details the results of two research surveys that have elicited the views of academics from around the world who are involved in remanufacturing research. The studies used the Delphi Technique to calibrate the different views on this broad and “open-ended” topic. The paper explains the Delphi Technique, the development of an online Delphi survey software tool and the STEEP (Social, Technical, Economic, Environmental, and Political) structure used for the surveys. The paper describes the process of using the Delphi Technique with the panel of academics, and shows the main results from each survey along with proposals for the continuing research agenda.

Design Rationale is the combination of the structure that underpins the design of a product, and the reasoning behind it. This paper details the findings of ongoing research into the creation of a Remanufacturing Design Platform Model (RDPM), focusing on understanding the rationale behind Design for Remanufacture (DfR), and investigating alternative design strategies, points in the process at which decisions regarding end of life reuse are made, and criteria and other factors which influence such decisions. Key criteria to be considered in the creation of a design rationale for remanufacturing are suggested. The main challenges for designers of “remanufacturable” products are also considered.

Product assessment carried out from the viewpoint of environmental aspects is one of the tools which are commonly used for environmentally conscious design (ECD). However, it sometimes becomes little more than a token procedure for some design engineers because there are too many items in the product assessment stage to properly evaluate their products. In addition, the evaluation items might not accurately reflect the environmental requirements for the products. In this paper, we surveyed the current status of ECD in the Japanese industrial machinery sector, and then we proposed several guides for use by manufacturers and/or industrial organizations when writing product standards involved in the preparation of appropriate product assessment guidelines.

The impacts of our increasingly unsustainable production and consumption has necessitated a major change in product design and development. This change is embodied in the vision of sustainability, which is attained through Sustainable Life Cycle Design (SLCD). This paper analyses the current practice of SLCD in the UK manufacturing industry by conducting a survey of companies in five major sectors. A case study is also presented to discuss the implementation of SLCD strategies in practice. A critical analysis of the trends obtained from the survey and a comparison of the results are presented. The paper is concluded by summarising the main findings of the survey and proposing a set of guidelines and recommendation for planning and implementing sustainable life cycle design in industry, thus suggesting change of course from conventional product design and manufacture towards sustainable production and consumption.

Law for the Recycling of Specified Kinds of Home Appliances (Home appliances recycling law) has been enforced since April 2001 in Japan. Four kinds of used appliances (refrigerators/freezers, air-conditioners, television sets, and washing machines) are specified to be recycled by law, and are transported to the recycling plants which are designated by manufactures, and are recycled properly at the plants.

The product recycling through out the cycle of manufacturing, use and mechanical recycling has steadily been implemented over five years since the law had been enforced.

Recycling plants are recycling useful materials as much as possible, and treating the environmental risky material properly. And they have been providing the necessary design information for productivity of product recycling to the manufacturers. As the result, some materials recovered from used appliances in recycling plants have already been used as a part of the products.

We introduce the current status of home appliances recycling in Japan that has been popular and took root in the society, and we also introduce an approach by the collaboration between our company and our recycling subsidiary.

With the implementation of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive (WEEE) manufacturers of electrical equipment are obliged to take responsibility for their appliances. At the moment different configuration of recycling systems are discussed in Germany which have in common that the recycling costs are distributed among the manufacturers by their respective market share. The developed concept allows an automated identification of electrical waste by means of RFID technology. A product individual signature of products has not only the potential to identify products but can also be useful for the entire product life cycle in terms of production control, documentation of the production process and after sales services.

Disassembly plays a key role in a life cycle economy since it enables the recovery of resources [1]. A partly automated disassembly system could adapt to a large variety of products and different degrees of devaluation, however, the deviations between the disassembly plan generated by the planning process and the actual situation of the disassembly system cause difficulties in the workshop execution. Controlling is necessary for regulating daily operations. The objective of Dynamic Process Planning (DPP) is to reflect the availabilities of the disassembly tools in the real disassembly cell and offer alternatives when a device or tool is not available. The DPP procedure will propose alternative disassembly processes and tools supported by a knowledge-based network method and will select the best suitable among them.

The remanufacturing process at the toner remanufacturing company Scandi-Toner is mostly based on manual work. The work environment is irritating and tiresome for employees due to high noise levels and amount of toner powder in the air. Therefore, Scandi-Toner decided to develop an automated cleaning process concept. The result of this research project was a concept based on different modules that together make it possible to isolate toner powder and absorb disturbing sounds. A high degree of flexibility was achieved by using transport tracks and palettes. The developed final concept is adaptable for future production flow with increased processing capability.

With the rapid development of modern industry, more and more electronic and electric products containing Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) are produced, consumed, and discarded in our daily life. The disassembling and reuse of electronic components mounted on these discarded PCBs are meaningful to reuse the valuable electronic components, reduce the pollution to the environment, reuse the bare PCBs, and retrieve the materials of PCBs. Four evaluation principles of disassembling methods, components reutilization rate, reliability and uniformity, thermal energy consumption and environmental impact, are analyzed. Based on the analysis of the existing disassembling approach, a new method is presented, which adopts a kind of special liquor, methylphenyl silicone oil, as the medium to transmit heat to the PCBs. The ultrasonic is used in the liquor to accelerate the melting and dropping of soldering tin through ultrasonic vibrations. An experimental framework has been established. The experiment proves that the method has good performances such as high efficiency of energy utilization and high unsoldering proportion.

Disassembly is the precondition of recycling products. And product disassembly model is the basis for product disassembly analysis. A product disassembly model named hierarchy network graph model is introduced. To describe the relation between parts, the model adopts network graph model, in which the nodes describe the parts information and the edges describe the constraints information between parts. To describe the product assembly hierarchy relation, the model adopts the hierarchy model. At the same time, the dynamic transfer mechanism is adopted to satisfy the different disassembly goals.

This article addresses the ecodesign of medium voltage electrical switchgear. These products are electrical units possessing particular specificities, associated with the conditions of use. They operate at elevated voltage and current, and are guaranteed for a minimum service life of twenty years. This demands a very high level of quality and implies the use of specific materials and manufacturing processes. This requirement makes it difficult to predict the end-of-life management. It is therefore important to examine the various alternatives for incorporating ecodesign in these units. This entails the assessment of the environment of existing products and the study of the design procedure employed. The approach described here is valid for other products in different sectors. It is based on the simplification of life cycle assessments to focus only on the most important life cycle phases and environmental indicators which offer a wider margin for improvement. For the case of medium voltage switchgear, stress is placed on the manufacturing and end-of-life phases.

Materials, defined as solids with a function, are basic modules for products in our everyday living and work environment. The development of products facing a complex qualification profile, which includes besides other technical, but also economic and ecological aspects. The two later aspects are not sufficient included in material development, especially from a Life cycle point of view, to provide them for the phase of product development.

In this project, Life Cycle Thinking is integrated in the development phase of materials right from the beginning, in order to identify technical, economic, and ecological benefits and drawbacks of developed geopolymers in comparison to traditional materials (functional unit). In the following contribution, the authors focus on the first of three steps, the evaluation of raw materials, which include the screening, and classification of raw materials.

Electrically conductive adhesives (ECA) could soon constitute a realistic alternative to solders. The present research compares 10Sn90Pb solder paste in Japan to an epoxy based and isotropical ECA containing pure silver. The findings are that the silver containing adhesive likely is environmentally more advantageous than 10Sn90Pb. Environmental trade-offs exist especially between the ecotoxicity of Sn1090Pb and the resource consumption of silver-epoxy ECA. Palladium is significant platings included. Overall, the next steps would be to use improved global LCI metal production models and also to compare the life cycle cost to the social cost.

With the increasing usage of polymer in modern products, polymer waste has become an important source of the waste stream with huge environmental impact (EI). Many countries have launched laws that mandate producers to be responsible for 3R (reuse, recycle and reduce) of End-of-Life (E-O-F) products, in which polymers account for a large proportion. This situation requires that not only performance and cost, but also environmental impact must be taken into consideration when evaluate polymer materials. This research manages to build up a framework to evaluate the Greenness of polymers at manufacture, usage, 3R and disposal stages.

The use of conventional coolants at the machining of metals causes different environmental problems. Besides plant seed oil, animal fat and used cooking oil proved to be other possible raw material sources for alternative ester based coolants. In this paper their properties are compared with those of mineral oil and plant seed oil ester products regarding technical, economical and ecological aspects from a life cycle perspective. In this context grinding tests, Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Costing were performed. The three disciplines are brought together in a material flow model and therefore results are well harmonized.

In order to achieve a more productive and environmentally friendly manufacturing of aerospace propulsion components, minimal quantity lubrication (MQL) can potentially replace the traditionally used flood cooling in different machining operations. These components are manufactured of difficult to machine alloys, which show great hardness even at elevated temperatures. Waspaloy is one of the more demanding super alloys to machine and serve as reference material in this investigation. In this paper, a turning operation is used to investigate the influence of MQL parameters such as oil type together with cutting data on cutting forces and tool wear. As a reference flood and air cooling was used. Two different type of oils were investigated, ester vs. fatty alcohol. The aerosol was directed towards the tool by two different nozzles. Responses that were measured include particle size, aerosol generation capability, cutting forces and tool wear. The experiments were conducted as a D-optimal design of experiments and evaluated by a regression analysis. No evidence of any lubrication effect can be seen. The most plausible explanation of the effects seen is the effects of cooling and heat transfer.

Industrial production inevitably results in an environmental impact. Energy consumption is responsible for a substantial part of this impact. Currently, machine designers spend little attention to minimising the energy consumption, since their primary focus is on the well-functioning of the machine.

This paper indicates the potential for energy improvement measures. According to Gutowski et al [1], a major part of the total energy consumption of a machine does not depend on the production rate, but is fixed. This paper searches for possible measures to reduce this independent fraction. Another aspect is the importance of the machine occupancy: in a lean manufacturing approach, machines only operate when a product order is released. This implies a constant availability of the machine in a stand-by mode, since high flexibility is required, while the actual processing time may be limited.

This paper audits these energy aspects for two discrete part producing machines types: a press brake and a multi-axis milling machine, and proposes initial design improvements to reduce the overall energy consumption. The possible economical and environmental impact of such energy saving measures from a life cycle perspective is quantified in order to allow cost-benefit analysis.

A method for determining optimal inspection schedules of equipment is discussed, in which failures of equipment are detected only by inspection. The inspection density function, which generates inspection schedules, is employed in a minimization problem. Two types of objective are considered: the expected cost per cycle, and the expected cost per unit time. An optimal inspection density function is derived by the variational method. The proposed method can generate optimal inspection schedules when failure distributions of equipment are completely unknown. Optimal inspection density functions and optimal sequences of inspection times are obtained explicitly for some cases that failure distributions are completely unknown.

Current trends in mechanical engineering show the growing importance of costs for machine tool life cycles. Since major customers increasingly focus on machine tool reliability and costs, even small and medium-sized companies that usually supply machine tools need to pay more attention to their products’ life cycle. Taking these requirements into account, the manufacturers can concentrate on their current service activities and improve their long-term customer retention. The objective of the presented research project is the development of a machine tool diagnosis and prognosis system that facilitates the improvement of maintenance activities.

The Life-Cycle-Performance of machine tools is a key figure concerning aspects of cost and benefits such as a high reliability and availability [1]. The dependence of production facilities on a high and constant availability increases with the degree of utilization. Hence, the availability of machine tools is substantial for the economic success of a manufacturer. The configuration of equipment elements in line with adapted product-accompanying services decisively contributes to the availability assurance. Thus, the aim of the article is to present a comprehensive calculation model to optimize the Life-Cycle-Performance of machine tools by a suitable reliability and availability prognosis considering the availability contribution of alternative machine equipment options and product accompanying services.

In the reuse strategy the role of warranty to deal with quality uncertainty is critical to ensure market acceptance and the economic feasibility of reuse itself. However, up to now there are only a few studies investigating this role. This paper will elucidate the role of warranty in the reuse strategy by reviewing the functions of warranty and putting them into a reuse context. Since warranty analysis is heavily based on reliability and leads to potential additional future costs, a model for analyzing the reliability of reused products and the cost consequences will be presented. An example focusing on a renewing Free Replacement Warranty (FRW) policy will be given.

Reuse of products and their components can be an economically and environmentally superior alternative to material recycling. One of the main obstacles in implementing a reuse strategy is the lack of reliable methods to assess the reliability of used parts, which should take the physical and technology life into account. This paper presents a lifetime simulation model to predict the remaining life of components for reuse based on the Weibull method and the S-curve technique to represent the physical and technology life of components. The model was tested by using a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) television.

The work presented in this paper addresses the issue of adverse selection in the secondary PC market and aims to raise consumer confidence with regard to the purchase of second hand personal computer systems. The solution adopts the concept of signalling from economic market theory and utilises existing on-board Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology (SMART) sensors to capture real-time usage data for the provision of a comprehensive signalling dataset on the product.

To achieve sustainable development, mechanical parts should be reused repeatedly. For the effective reuse of parts, each reusable part is required to be under an appropriate management. For this purpose, we are proposing a system that is a combination of network agents called “Part agents” and radio frequency identification. A scheme is proposed in which Part agents generate advice for the consumer on the adequate activity of maintenance of the part based on their preference and the degradation status of the part. A simulation system of Part agents is developed to show that the proposed Part agent system would promote the reuse of parts.

Concerning the End of Life (EOL) of Waste of Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), the idea of a wireless ID or wireless information attached to WEEE devices, may enable numerous concepts for increased traceability and increased recycling efficiency. Technologically RFID is already capable of realizing several of these theoretical options. The ongoing development towards more powerful, reliable and cheaper RFID transponder technology will enable more and more of these theoretical options. This paper will introduce different concepts and a three-generation perspective for the application of RFID to WEEE.

The early development process of products imposes to fulfill numerous types of requirements simultaneously. Those requirements are often qualitative and imprecise. The main tasks of a development team consist of grasping and understanding customer needs, refining these needs, synthesizing concepts of solutions, evaluating and selecting appropriate solutions. Evaluating and selecting solutions is a critical stage because various types of metrics are used to measure performances of concepts. This paper presents both theoretical contributions and practical implementations. This article presents a theoretical analysis of resource consumption and environmental impact from the viewpoint of exergy. In addition, this article provides a theoretical answer to the issue of qualitative modeling of early design concepts of solutions. This article opens a fruitful perspective for combining heterogeneous requirements in a coherent and systematic manner by using dimensional analysis calculus.

Product life cycle design has gained more interest in recent years due to growing concern about environmental problems. In general, there exist significant uncertainties (e.g., operating condition, user preference, collection rate etc.) in product life cycle and a design method that is robust and tolerant against these uncertainties should be established. To this end, this paper discusses the uncertainties in product life cycle and evaluates their impact on total performance throughout a whole product life cycle. Based on this discussion, a design method for product life cycle that maximizes its total performance handling these uncertainties is proposed.

Taking processes under development into consideration, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) analysis result of pilot plants, mini plants or laboratory experiments do not necessarily represent the environmental burdens which would be caused by a large scale plant (mass production). Especially for comparative LCA studies there is a necessity to analyse, whether there are influences on environmental burdens due to scale up.

There are effects which should be taken into consideration for such scale-up prognosis in LCA. This paper reports on an innovative systematic procedure, which enables the industry to make prognosis for production scale plant based on LCA of pilot processes.

Small and medium sized manufacturers offer opportunities in reducing life cycle impacts, as green demand cascades through supply chains, and challenges due to their lack of environmental management and life cycle engineering skills. This research explored existing management tools to meet manufacturing SMEs reported need for self assessment. Drawing on the principles of environmental performance evaluation, this paper presents the development and application of a spreadsheet tool for diagnosing environmental performance in SMEs’ product design and production and relates it to the tools used recently in the UK by Perform and Benchmark Index and the ecoBiz assessment used in Australia.

Data bases for LCI calculation are not available in many countries or regions, but many evidences exist from which the environmental impacts of materials, manufacturing processes, energy generation, product end life and others are also different among them. Consequently, it’s necessary to make efforts in order to develop data for LCA applications, or, in absence of other options, to use existing data for LCA approach in developing countries or regions. In this paper, results from the use of European data (specifically Spanish data) for eight electrical generation technologies are applied over the energetic generation mix of Venezuela, obtaining interesting results that can be used to explore the possibility of making LCA in the power sector of Venezuela.

Energy cost reduction and consequently contribution for global environment is often said to constitute main advantage of Home Energy Management System (HEMS). However, this strategy would be able to attract merely LOHAS (Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability) market. We investigate cunsumer attitudes toward HEMS based on Focused Group Interview (FGI) method targeted for planning or actually having ones own house. Our results suggest that target marketing for those who intend to have own house is quite effective, though rennovation market seems to be less attractive for HEMS. Our analysis also implies that ideal marketer for the target may be existing home security service provider and alike because HEMS by itself does not induce cusomers to make additional expenditure and should be marketed as one of supplemental function for other home related services at this time.

The rapid progress in diffusion of durable products plays an important role to change people’s lifestyle in Japan. The wide spread of home electric appliances which play an auxiliary role of housework like refrigerators has reduced time spent on housework and raised the value of an hour of our lives. Regarding refrigerators, consumers who possess a refrigerator without freezer storage are able to purchase and preserve perishable foods. When consumers possess a refrigerator with freezing compartments, they can additionally purchase and preserve frozen products. The more sophisticated equipment households possess, the greater variety of goods and services they can reach. In short, the technological development changes people’s lifestyle and consumers’ needs. In this paper, a theoretical framework of consumer behaviours will be illustrated based on the microeconomic theory. The model describes the effects of durable products on a diversity of consumption. The diversification of consumption may affect to the change in the industrial structures and the dynamic changes in production activities due to the changes in consumers’ needs may affect the environment.

This study examines problems of environmentally conscious decision-making in resource consumption using experiments with human subjects. Environmentally conscious behavior is an important issue related to environmental problems such as natural resource exhaustion. However, environmentally conscious behavior must confront the dilemma posed by self-interest and public interest. This study constructs a decision-making model of this situation based on a game-theoretical approach. Experiments with human subjects reveal that a sense of crisis of resource exhaustion can influence decision-making. Vast resources are often consumed and resources decrease furiously when adequate resources remain. Environmentally conscious behavior emerges as resources approach exhaustion.

This paper is concerned with a new integrated analytical model for evaluating environmental loads induced by consumer behavior. The model consists of two components: One is the waste input-output (WIO) model that is a consistent framework for the hybrid life-cycle assessment and life-cycle costing. The other is an economics model of consumer behavior within the constraints of limited income and time based on the concept of consumption ‘technologies.’ Because consumers are regarded as industrial sectors in the newly developed model, not only time and income rebound effects but also a part of the so-called economy-wide rebound effects is accounted for.

Now a day, with the emerging growth of the service industry, manufacturing companies are convinced that their products must be strengthened with service. Thus, we have developed a new discipline called Service Engineering that aims to produce a novel method to design service from an engineering viewpoint. In this paper, the authors propose an evaluation model that enables service designers to measure receivers’ satisfaction. The authors proposed the “Satisfaction — Attribute Value Function” as an evaluation model that suits man’s behavior. Applying to an example, the result of our method had richer information than the result of conjoint analysis.

Several clothes washing alternatives are investigated with a specific emphasis on characterizing the benefit, if any, associated with servicizing a washing machine product. The pay for use alternative will consider a laundromat, in which people wash their clothes and pay a fee for that service. Another alternative is selling washing machines for home use. The alternatives are evaluated in terms of their economic costs and environmental impacts to provide a quantitative comparison of the alternatives. The environmental evaluation is obtained using SimaPro 7.0. Specific measures of performance that are considered include costs, energy, and water usage.

The worldwide spread of environmental rules concerning electrical and electronic equipment has increased the need for improved efficiency of Design for Environment (DfE). At present, assembly manufacturers request parts suppliers to submit parts data to confirm compliance with environmental rules. Especially, assembly manufacturers are strongly interested in the chemical content of parts. When confirming the accuracy of the data, an analytical instrument is often utilized by both assembly manufacturers and parts suppliers. However, it takes a huge number of man-hours. To solve the problem, we have proposed the methodology and application to confirm the accuracy without using an analytical instrument. Firstly, we have developed logic to extract benchmark data from the existing parts database by applying statistical processes. “Benchmark data” are used for comparison to confirm environmental data for parts. We also developed a tool that produces a benchmark map, which is a matrix of benchmark data. Then we proposed the evaluation method using benchmark data in quality assurance workflow to enable to confirm the credibility of the data. The use of benchmark data will reduce the risk of non-conformity or the number of man-hours needed for parts selection and parts qualification.

Currently, whenever Sustainable Product Design is the topic of discussion among industry partners, such as in the electronics industry, the focus is strongly determined by regulatory issues, in particular related to end-of-life management of products. Generally spoken, academic institutes do not have a very active role (anymore) in these discussions. As the role of academic institutes is to foresee (social, economical, environmental) developments and their future impacts to society, including industry, it is understandable that a time lag can be observed between academic institutes signalling and studying such developments, and industrial adoption of (some of) these ideas, often more effectively once the future has become reality. In this light, this presentation discusses, from an ‘academic ivory tower’ perspective but based on factual and anecdotal evidence from industry, future developments related to Sustainable Product Design that might become more real to industry in years to come. These include green marketing, communication, change management issues, and green value chain management.

In today’s business environment enterprises are challenged to rapidly develop successful innovations that have to consider various requirements. Many failures of innovations in different phases of their life cycle can not comprehensively explained by previous theoretical approaches. Against this background, the Life Cycle Innovation framework is proposed in this paper. The integration of the Life Cycle Innovation model within the concept of extended supply chain networks leads to a model that represents the whole life cycle of a product. The approach allows to classify and to describe prior failures and serves as the framework for a simulation approaches.

Airconditioners are the appliance with the largest share of electricity consumption in Japanese households. In our preceding study, it was found that the high-end model (with the highest environmental performance with regard to Global Warming Potential and landfill consumption) turns out to be the one with the lowest life cycle cost, and the low-end model (with the lowest environmental performance) the one with the highest life cycle cost. This paper is concerned with investigating if the above finding still holds for more recent data, say for 2005, and also in analyzing possible changes that have occurred since 2002 from the perspective of eco-efficiency. Compared with the previous results, we notice a significant reduction in the cost at the use phase due to the convergence in efficiency at the use phase, and the resulting reduction in life-cycle costs among alternative models. There was thus a significant increase in eco-efficiency between 2002 and 2005 in terms of both CO

2

and landfill consumption.

Recently an increasing number of customers demands more extensive warranties from the machine building industry. In order to control and maintain the arising costs from the seller’s point of view, the paper in hand presents a generic and comprehensive approach to estimate the distribution function of machine warranty cost. Based on the estimation of the failure rate distribution certain life cycle cost elements are quantified either deterministically or stochastically depending on their characteristic. The Monte-Carlo simulation is used for the flexible consideration of the entire system and the estimation of risk figures such as the Value-at-Risk.

Design is a process that involves information processing and decision-making. As cost is an important factor that must be considered in the decision-making at this phase, proper information about costs is extremely important for designers. The authors present a cost model and tool developed to help designers estimate the life cycle cost of their products and to permit them to make more cost-effective design decisions. The tool can be used in a concurrent engineering environment to provide cost estimates for different design alternatives. What-if analyses can be performed to compare costs when using different components, materials or manufacturing processes.

Industrial products basically have to satisfy the customers’ wants and needs as a basic input as well as technical and ecological requirements while providing maximum economic benefit throughout the life cycle. In the early stages of design and development all these requirements have to be considered in terms of their long-term impacts on the entire product life cycle. The approach discussed in this paper combines quality and value-driven tools with the methodology of life cycle costing including the assessment of environmental aspects. While traditional cost optimising was successful by streamlining operations and returning to core competencies, this approach allows for sustainable cost optimisation in the early stages of product development and correlates with quality planning as well as ecologic product assessment. Based on the Value-Oriented Life Cycle Costing method, product components are evaluated over their life cycle to identify those components incurring high life cycle costs compared to their functional value. In order to achieve an efficient and effective design to life cycle the methods of Quality Function Deployment and Value Analysis are aligned with the methods of Life Cycle Costing and Life Cycle Assessment to be integrated into a comprehensive approach. This paper describes the theoretical background and explains the practical implementation based on a case study. The results of the practical analysis conducted illustrate the optimisation potential to be realised when implementing the approach in comparison to traditional design solutions.

The paper deals with a framework of the product lifecycle costing system, with an emphasis on cost estimating, for supporting decision making, especially the decision making on EOL strategy. In particular, the imprecise EOL data given in forms of interval, due to the lack of knowledge or the ordinary ambiguity of design in the early stage, is taken into consideration. In order to deal with interval data, the robust deviation criterion is applied to obtain a robust product design alternatives with the objective of optimizing the overall product lifecycle costs. It will give a conservative estimation of product lifecycle costs with the corresponding processes through its lifecycle. Consequently, it can be used as a design support tool to help new product development.

In any industrial organization, the management of spare parts is very important because of functional and economic reasons. In order to have a good level of availability of the machine it is necessary to have a stock level of spare parts. On the other hand the efficacy and efficiency of maintenance policies depend on the ability to optimize the management of such supplies. Moreover, stock of spare parts represents for a company an elevated voice of cost, since it means to immobilize capital.

The aim of this work is to determine the optimal spare parts volume so to minimize the operating costs and of the lost production costs for unavailability. The work explores the classification criteria of spare parts by means of opportune Criticality Analysis. According to an appropriate “decision tree”, spare parts are divided in a series of classes corresponding to different management policies, as RCM technique does with failure causes. Applying an algorithm of statistics management and by means of a technical-economic simulation methodology, we determined the optimal spare parts volume considering as key parameters the supply time and the level of service.