56. Ecodesign Methods Integration into SMEs Product Development

Various methods—as systematic procedures for achieving results—and tools—as technical or mental aids for achieving results—(for simplicity, referred to as techniques in the following) have been developed for the sustainable development of products. This multitude of options, however, poses a challenge to product developers, because so far there is no practical approach to interlinked product development that sufficiently takes ecological requirements into account and is easy to adopt for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). It is particularly difficult for SMEs and start-ups to choose suitable techniques and utilise them in their normal day-to-day operations, which makes it increasingly difficult for them to align their innovation activities with ecological requirements (Pigosso et al. in J Indian Inst Sci 95(4):405–426 (2015); Ernzer and Birkhofer in The 7th International Design Conference, Dubrovnik, pp. 1305–1310 (2002)). The present work deals with current techniques that were selected based on predefined criteria for integrability in SMEs and the promotion of the development of a product that is sustainable (Kokoschko et al. in Entwerfen Entwickeln Erleben in Produktentwicklung und Design 2021. Entwerfen Entwickeln Erleben, pp. 49–57 (2021); Kokoschko et al. in Design for Tomorrow‐-Volume 1. Springer Singapore, Singapore, pp. 901–910 (2021)) and integrated into the product development process (PDP) concept of Integrated Design Engineering (IDE) (Integrated Design Engineering, Ein interdisziplinäres Modell für die ganzheitliche Produktentwicklung. Springer Vieweg, Berlin, 2014) and thus tested for their moment of use, practicability and manageability. Therefore, two case studies of product development were used to test the techniques, and the process model was adapted based on the experiences and results of the case studies. The aim of this work is to help SMEs and start-ups develop products more competitively with context-specific technique proposals and their descriptions and thereby contribute to sustainability through the development of sustainable product development processes. This allows both the design and manufacture of products to be aligned with ecological environmental requirements, making a major contribution to the development of an integrated and interconnected PDP and thus is an important step towards solving current environmental problems (Herrmann in Ganzheitliches Life Cycle Management, Nachhaltigkeit und Lebenszyklusorientierung in Unternehmen. VDI-Buch. Springer, Berlin, 2010). Also, it will be discussed that sustainability in this context is to be understood in two ways: firstly, application sustainability, which describes the long-term use of a sustainability technique, and secondly, the development of products that become more sustainable through the use of certain techniques (product sustainability).