Sustainable Design and Manufacturing 2017

The connected impact of management and technology can considerably contribute to achieve sustainability in global value creation. Industrial engineering started as an educational program at universities based on existing programs in business administration and engineering. The expanding application of this integrative approach of science and practical implementation in industry and in societal communities coins the architecture of how to implement sustainability in different societies. The practical case of setting up a joint program of universities in an early developed and an emerging country illustrates how potentials of industrial engineering can be exploited for promoting sustainable local manufacturing.

One of the most prominent challenges commonly acknowledged by modern manufacturing industries is “how to produce more with fewer resources?” Nowhere is this more true than in the food sector due to the recent concerns regarding the long-term availability and security of food products. The unique attributes of food products such as the need for fresh perishable ingredients, health risks associated with inappropriate production environment, stringent storage and distributions requirements together with relatively short post-production shelf-life makes their preparation, production and supply considerably different to other manufactured goods. Furthermore, the impacts of climate change on our ability to produce food, the rapidly increasing global population, as well as changes in demand and dietary behaviours both within developed and developing countries urgently demands a need to change the way we grow, manufacture and consume our food products. This paper discusses a number of key research challenges facing modern food manufacturers, including improved productivity using fewer resources, valorisation of food waste, improving the resilience of food supply chains, localisation of food production, and utilisation of new sustainable sources of nutrition for provision of customised food products.

Implementing sustainable manufacturing principles and practices leads to innovation and sustainable value creation at product, process and system levels. In recent years, with the exponential growth in sustainable manufacturing research to meet the rapidly growing needs of industry and society, significant emphasis has been placed on designing innovative sustainable products and developing and implementing novel and advanced sustainable manufacturing processes to produce such sustainable products in automotive, aerospace, consumer products, biomedical and power industries. Sustainable manufacturing has been recognized as the driver for innovation in the manufacturing industrial sector. Achieving sustainable manufacturing targets inevitably requires a metrics-based analysis of sustainable manufacturing at product, process and systems levels.This paper presents an overview of the 6R (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, Recover, Redesign and Remanufacture) approach to promote sustainable manufacturing to enable closed-loop, multiple life-cycle material flow. The paper specifically focuses on sustainable product design for manufacture, with an in-depth analysis of product design and development processes by utilizing the novel 6R methodology. The transformation of conventional product design processes to sustainable product design/development is presented by expanding the recently-proposed metrics-based sustainable product evaluation method to include integrated predictive performance models for optimized sustainable product design. Designing sustainable products is presented as the most effective pathway towards promoting innovation and sustainable value creation.

The growing complexity of the design activity in an innovation and sustainable context requires experience reuse as a means to limit unsustainable investments. It is a crucial task for both academic and industrial communities to find ways to efficiently capture and reuse past experience. Case-based reasoning (CBR) is a research paradigm that stores experience as a knowledge unit to solve a new problem from the previous design experience. A well-established method for inventive design is IDM (the Inventive Design Methodology). Its most widely used tool to solve a problem is the “Contradiction Matrix” associated with forty inventive principles. The correct use of these tools needs the mapping from freely expressed text (Specific Parameters or SPs) into a well-established set of Generic Engineering Parameters (or GEPs). This mapping requires expertise and may, if inappropriately used, lead to weak results. This paper introduces the Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) algorithm to discover the implied semantic relations between SPs and GEPs coming from past experience. A semantic space based on the LSI results is built for guiding retrieval in case-based reasoning.

The optimization of electrical discharge machining (EDM) parameters of Cobalt Chromium Molybdenum (Co-Cr-Mo) is performed using central composite design to improve the process efficiency in terms of increasing material removal rate and electrode utilization time. The effects of pulse on time, pulse off time, voltage and current on electrode wear rate (EWR) and material removal rate (MRR) have been examined. The experimental results indicate that higher pulse on time, lower pulse off time, 100 v to 110 v for voltage and current at the range of 8 to 9 A are the adequate selection to achieve higher MRR and lower EWR.

This paper presents a comprehensive data collection framework focused on retrieving data from an inertial sensor using a smartphone device. The aim of this study is to present a low-cost and sustainable data collection framework solution based on previous data framework model developed. The proposed framework will allow the users (doctors, physicians, patients, family members, etc.) to visualize online the real-time performance results, as the patience carries out its physical therapy. The data collection framework utilizes an in-house developed smartphone app and open source software for the server/client interaction. The data collection framework has been test by collecting information from different exercise machines and free movement exercises. The tests show that the real-time data collection framework proposed is reliable in capturing, recording and displaying the data obtained during a training exercise session, aiming toward the tracking people’s quality of life.

Exercise is important for people’s quality of life, and nowadays, motion assessment has been a significant part to monitor and evaluate physical factors of people on daily basis, such as activity trackers and fit bands. Some of the issues while performing motion assessment are the use of bulky sensors, data collection restrictions, limited access to data, inability to perform further analysis of the data, etc. To address some of these problems, a data collection framework was develop with the use of a low-cost inertial sensor, and tested on three different fitness equipment. The collected data was analyze by associated to the signal to a series of performance metrics with the aid of visual interpretation. Based on the benchmark findings, the proposed approach has proven to be a viable way to analyze the data with the deployed tools, concise with the user’s exercise performance while using the different fitness equipment.

The increasing access of people to fabrication capabilities has stimulated the emergence of personal fabrication settings and inspired post-industrial production scenarios. One strategy to support personal production is to increase technology literacy and access for citizens to means of production. Yet, so far, the deliberate design of products so they can be realized by individuals, an activity termed here as “design for do-it-yourself (DIY) production”, has been under-explored in academia. The present article aims to formalize the know-how gained by practitioners who designed products for production in do-it-yourself settings. It provides an original definition of DIY and the formulation of 14 design principles for DIY production to support practice.

Design for upgradability is one of the strategies in a remanufacturing process that can help to improve the features of a product in terms of performance and functions. This paper presents a study on the performance evaluation of a product at the engineering metric level for upgrade purpose. A brake caliper was used as a case example in which brake test was conducted to measure the brake pedal force. The brake pedal force values are used to measure the brake torque which represents the performance of the brake caliper. The upgradability of the brake caliper is then evaluated in view of improving the current design. This paper also proposed and discussed future work on the upgradability of the automotive component.

Sustainable manufacturing is becoming increasingly important. This requires sustainable industrial system different to today’s global industry with different business models, creating different products and services requiring new strategies, frameworks, and tools. The evolution towards a ‘sustainable’ industrial production systems requires a holistic approach, with a fundamental reassessment of the value creation. In order to achieve this target a system design approach is required. In this paper an existing and specific Manufacturing Value Modeling Methodology (MVMM) is used as a value mapping framework to help firms in creating value propositions better suited for sustainability considering economic, environmental and social perspectives. Concerning sustainability, implementing it into the MVMM requires the setting of a catalogue that presents an overview of sustainable external and internal impact factors and a mapping between them in order to translate business goals into manufacturing strategy, and allows to improve operational performance by adopting a set of sustainable industrial practices.

Sustainable product development initiatives have been evolving for some time to support companies improve the efficiency of current production and the design of new products and services through supply chain management. The development of different methods and tools for considering environmental criteria in the same way as conventional design criteria through an Eco-design approach were carried out. Environmental assessment tools are generally based on a life cycle assessment (LCA) method, which can inform production and consumption choices because it assess the environmental performance of a product through accounting all the energy and material inputs and the associated emissions and waste outputs at each stage of its life cycle.While using LCA to measure the environmental dimension of sustainability is widespread, similar approaches for the economic (LCC) and the social (S-LCA) dimensions of sustainability still have limited application worldwide and there is need for consistent and robust methods and indicators. This paper focuses on the production step and presents the redesign process of an airbrush in order to improve their sustainability performance. According to LCA evaluation methods, an approach based on the analysis of the flows exchanged by the industrial installation throughout the production step was developed. Different sustainability indicators were obtained. In particular, the environmental indicator of global warming, the economic indicator of value added and the social indicator of working hours were used to assess the sustainability performance. An improvement of the redesigned product indicators was achieved.

Achieving a sustainable consumption and production pattern is one of the United Nation’s sustainable development goals for 2030. To achieve this, it is necessary to consider the environmental burden from a product life cycle and the quality of life of the consumer. In this study, a systematic approach for connecting basic human needs and the product development process, called the living-sphere approach, is proposed. In this approach, value graphs, which visualize the value system of products, are connected to satisfiers fulfilling the basic needs set out by Max-Neef. A value graph links satisfiers and the traditional product development process. The significance of the proposed approach is that improving quality of daily life and traditional product development are combined in the same framework.

Packaging has caused much waste and its sustainability has received much attention in the past decades. Designers have made efforts to mitigate environmental impacts of packaging. However, many packaging designs are still far from achieving their sustainability goals. The purpose of this study is to perform a literature review of the principal design methods and tools for sustainable packaging published over the last twenty years. The objective is to understand the main obstacles that limit their effective implementation in the packaging design process. This study develops a sustainable packaging design and development model and proposes criteria for accessing packaging tools and methods. This study has found that to achieve sustainable design, many tools have limitations in demonstrating usage and balancing trade-off situations. Most of the tools focus on defining problems rather than suggesting possible solutions.

Modern challenges require modern thinking, which again calls for modern teaching methods. The complex field of sustainable manufacturing cannot be taught out of school books but must be experienced. Learning games have a great potential for that. Therefore, to meet the gap in educational resources in the field of sustainable manufacturing, a learning game for high school students has been developed and its effect tested with 76 players.

In recent years, the additive manufacturing processes have rapidly developed. The additive manufacturing processes currently present a high-performance alternative to conventional manufacturing methods. In particular, they offer the opportunity of previously hardly imaginable design freedom, i.e. the implementation of complex forms and geometries. This capability can, for example, be applied in the development of especially light but still loadable components in automotive engineering. In addition, waste material is seldom produced in additive manufacturing which benefits a sustainable production of building components. Until now, this design freedom was barely used in the construction of technical components and products because, in doing so, both specific design guidelines for additive manufacturing and complex strength calculations must be simultaneously observed. Yet in order to fully take advantage of the additive manufacturing potential, the method of topology optimization, based on FEM simulation, suggests itself. It is with this method that components that are precisely matched and are especially light, thereby also resource-saving, can be produced. Current literature research indicates that this method is used in automotive manufacturing for reducing weight and improving the stability of both individual parts and assembly units. This contribution will study how this development method can be applied in the example of a brake mount from an experimental vehicle. In this, the conventional design is improved by means of a simulation tool for topology optimization in various steps. In an additional processing step, the smoothing of the thus developed component occurs. Finally, the component is generatively manufactured by means of selective laser melting technology. Models are manufactured using binder jetting for the demonstration of the process. It will also be determined how this weight reduction affects the CO₂ emissions of a vehicle in use.

The open tank oil quenching process is a traditional heat treatment that gives the final microstructures and performance to high quality mechanical parts, typically made by alloyed steels. Due to the microstructure transformations that occur during a heat treatment, the heat treated mechanical part is subjected to shape modifications and distortions. In order to match design tolerances, a machining allowance must be planned and re-machining operations must be realised. The die-assisted oil quenching process utilises a hydraulic press in order to apply a high pressure through a die to the mechanical part during the cooling stage of the heat treatment. The force exerted by the die on the part determines a reduction of distortions along with the control of the shape and of certain dimensions depending on the part geometry and the die design. In the present paper, the technical sustainability of the die-assisted oil quenching process is discussed and compared with the traditional heat treatment in terms of distortion control and reduction of machining operations.

The validity of traditional manufacturing decision variables (i.e. cost, quality, flexibility and time) is questioned by some important challenges of our time: the scarcity of natural resources and environmental pollution. Increasing energy cost to extract and process natural resources, alongside regulatory pressures against pollution, pushes very mature and competitive processes like casting towards a holistic approach where sustainability contributes to strategic decisions together with the mentioned traditional manufacturing variables. As a contribution to this industrial necessity, a modular tool able to analyse material and energy flows in casting processes is under development. In particular, the ability to represent automatically Sankey diagrams of the flows recently implemented is described and validated.

Major Disruptions and Sustainability metrics in supply chains (SCs) are presented by means of a case study involving a large manufacturing organisation. The main findings point to four main strategies which organisations could use in the face of disruptions, namely: maintaining stock, sharing information, disaster management planning, and pursuing initiatives with suppliers (e.g. dual sourcing, outsourcing, SC visibility and risk modelling). The sustainability metrics indicate that being successful at managing disruptions in SCs does not preclude manufacturing organisations from also being successful in the sustainability dimensions of the triple bottom line.

The Multi-Layer Stream Mapping (MSM) methodology addresses current challenges regarding the applicability of Lean Thinking concepts in the domain of sustainability assessment tools. Therefore, MSM aims to assess the overall performance of a production system, while evaluating the productivity and efficiency of resource utilization as well as evaluate the costs related to missuses and inefficiencies and other process and domains variables. This paper highlights the benefits arising from the application of the MSM methodology in a real industrial case regarding the injection moulding process, namely fostering the quantification of the efficiency of different resources streams, for its improvement, for the several production processes involved. So, it is explained how MSM can contribute for a more sustainable production system with a continuously increasing productivity.

Micro electrochemical machining is one of the promising non-conventional machining methods which has created new horizon in Micro and Nano product technologies including MEMS, defense, medical and automobile industries. An existing challenge in manufacturing has been known as the lack of identified methodology and measurement science to evaluate the sustainability of the process performance. This challenge would be more critical when it comes to Micro and Nano manufacturing process. This paper presents a review on challenges encountered in micro electrochemical machining considering it as a sustainable manufacturing process.

The existing Community regulation pushes the carmakers to design eco-sustainability of the vehicle over its life cycle to limit the consequences of the current state and the expected growth of the sector. In this sense, one of the primary aim is reducing raw materials consumption and emissions through the adoption of innovative materials and technologies. This implies the need for the carmakers to integrate Design for Environment (DfE) principles at the early Research and Development (R&D) stage. The article presents a concreate example of integration of DfE and LCA methodology application in the R&D process of a vehicle component produced by Magneti Marelli. The study allowed drawing a balance between the advantages of a lightweight solution with respect to the standard one both from performance and environmental point of view.

Remanufacturing is a promising industrial activity where products and materials are upgraded and considered for at least another life cycle. In addition to being an environmentally conscious action, remanufacturing has the potential to support circular economy within which significant profit opportunities exist. However, high levels of uncertainty can be experienced during, before and after remanufacturing. This makes its planning stochastic and hard to control. As each component or product is different, with for example high levels of geometrical variation; they may require a unique strategy and process planning. To aid this process, a conceptual decision making framework to support process planning of remanufacturing engineering processes (REP) is proposed. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) method is employed to support the proposed framework (hereafter referred to as REP-QFD). The application of the QFD based methods rely heavily on inputs from experts, in the form of their experience and knowledge. The paper considers how the proposed framework can be engineered with the aim to substantially reduce this reliance on experts and their expertise. The term “Engineering” here reflects the study’s focus on technical decisions at the reconditioning stage. To further support the framework a taxonomy of metal manufacturing/remanufacturing processes is also developed.

The main goal of the described activity is the verification of an innovative production process of a steel supporting plate by using numerical simulation. The normal production process consists of different phases and processes: the laser cutting of blanks, welding, stress relieving, heat treatment and machining. The studied alternative is a sand casting process in order to directly obtain the final supporting plate. Numerical simulations were used to investigate the impact behavior of complex products in order to define the best production solution. The new design chain represents an important simplification in order to reach a simpler, less expensive and more sustainable manufacturing process and these aspects were confirmed performing a Life Cycle Assessment.

Remanufacturing represents a significant mean encouraging sustainability. This paper aims to investigate the critical factors influencing the decisions of firms to engage in remanufacturing through conducting a case study of Thai remanufactured photocopiers employing qualitative and quantitative approaches. The results show that business feasibility is the prominent determinant driving firms’ decisions, followed by firm’s strategic factors, and policy factors. Totally derived from the area of business feasibility, as the top four individual factors, financial aspects is ranked first as the most critical factor influencing remanufacturing, followed by availability of skilled workers, product maturity, and technical aspects. Firm-level characteristics matter significantly in ranking the factors. Concrete support by government towards implementing comprehensive policies is needed to strengthen remanufacturing development in Thailand.

With increasing expectations on manufacturers to show leadership in reducing the negative environmental and social consequences of their operations, there are many examples of successful journeys towards sustainability. Potentially there are common steps in how organizations change and these could be common across different sectors. This research seeks to uncover what companies do to instigate and create momentum in their organization and what commonality exists. Seven steps were identified through analyzing case data across companies operating in different sectors. The steps of vision, leadership, education, simplicity, pilot, momentum and broadcast are presented and the implications for further research assessed.

Although there is a significant progress in treatment technologies, Olive Mills Wastewater (OMWW) remains a source of environmental degradation to olive-oil producing regions. In this paper, the management of OMWW is examined as a trigger for a bio-economic industrial symbiosis, based on the valorisation of OMWW for biopolymers and bioenergy production. In addition, the valorisation of OMWW is considered in an eco-industrial context, as a node of a wider network of material, energy and information exchanges. The aim of the paper is to discuss the benefits and the feasibility of such a venture from a technical, economic, as well as social perspective using the context of a specific prefecture in Greece as a reference implementation environment.

The usage of valuable resources and the potential for waste generation at the end of the life cycle of photovoltaic (PV) technologies necessitate a proactive planning for a PV recycling infrastructure. To ensure the sustainability of PV in large scales of deployment, it is vital to develop and institute low-cost recycling technologies and infrastructure for the emerging PV industry in parallel with the rapid commercialization of these new technologies. There are various issues involved in the economics of PV recycling and this research examine those at macro and micro levels, developing a holistic interpretation of the economic viability of the PV recycling systems. This study will present mathematical models developed to analyze the profitability of recycling technologies and to guide tactical decisions for allocating optimal location of PV take-back centers (PVTBC), necessary for the collection of end of life products. The economic decision is usually based on the level of the marginal capital cost of each PVTBC, cost of reverse logistics, distance traveled, and the amount of PV waste collected from various locations. Results illustrated that the reverse logistics costs comprise a major portion of the cost of PVTBC; PV recycling centers can be constructed in the optimally selected locations to minimize the total reverse logistics cost for transporting the PV wastes from various collection facilities to the recycling center. In the micro- process level, automated recycling processes should be developed to handle the large amount of growing PV wastes economically. The market price of the reclaimed materials are important factors for deciding the profitability of the recycling process and this illustrates the importance of the recovering the glass and expensive metals from PV modules.

Additive Manufacturing technologies are becoming increasingly prevalent in commercial practice, and as a result attention is gradually being devoted to their implications for sustainability and supply chain management. One pertinent topic for these technologies remaining largely unexplored is that of Supply Chain Risk Management. This paper serves to provide an initial contribution in the form of a conceptual framework to identify risk sources, consequences, responses, and controls from a sustainability perspective, and provides directions for future research on this topic.

In past years the European Union (EU) set targets to reduce emissions in order to encourage and develop a more sustainable society. As a consequence of this, the carmakers began to study new materials and innovative technologies in order to lightweight their vehicles, thus reducing use stage fuel consumption and environmental impact. A promising strategy for this is replacing steel with composites although the adoption of these materials often involves negative effects on production and End-of-Life (EoL) stages. For this reason, a comprehensive assessment of the entire component Life Cycle (LC) is needed, not only in terms of environmental issues but also economic and social ones. This paper presents a sustainable design approach based on TOPSIS methodology functional to compare different design solutions in the automotive sector; the approach is also validated by an application to a real case study.

In order to become more competitive, manufacturing companies exploit new technologies and practices that can improve their production efficiency, and reduce the number of rejected products. This work is about a Monitoring and Data Analysis System (MDAS), a software system that combines data mining, neural networks modelling and graphical data analysis to assist the company in identifying patterns, trends or problems that increase the risk of rejected products. A pilot version of the proposed system is tested on two production lines of a pharmaceutical company and has identified previously unknown patterns and trends that were hindering the quality of the end product. Since the operation of the proposed system does not affect the production it is suitable for industries bound by strict regulation. In general, the proposed system could be adopted for other products and industries.

The Life Cycle Thinking and the Knowledge Based Engineering approaches can be integrated in order to allow a preliminary-rough but effective Life Cycle Assessment, since the first phases of the design of an industrial product. In the present paper, we propose a general framework considering a number of different aspects, mainly concerning the manufacturing choices, but also related to the design of the product. The aim is to overcome the eco design paradox and to provide a tool supporting designer during the product concept to increase its sustainability.

Manufacturing decisions are currently made based on considerations of cost, time and quality. However there is increasing pressure to also routinely incorporate environmental considerations into the decision making processes. Despite the existence of a number of tools for environmental analysis of manufacturing activities, there does not appear to be a structured approach for generating relevant environmental information that can be fed into manufacturing decision making. This research proposes an overarching structure that leads to three approaches, pertaining to different timescales that enable the generation of environmental information, suitable for consideration during decision making. The approaches are demonstrated through three industrial case studies.

Sustainability measurement represents a key element if companies aim to translate sustainability from compliance with standards to core organizational asset. This paper presents the development of a structured dataset of European companies – named as Sustainability Measurement and Management (SuMM) Lab– that aims to assess company’s performance accordingly to sustainability metrics. Data have been collected on a pilot sample of 400 Italian companies and the results provide insights on how SuMM Lab could be exploited to assess the diffusion of sustainability practices in organizations.

The exponential and adverse increase in global conditions like climate change, ocean acidification and aerosol loading stresses the urgency to achieve sustainable development in all global activities, including manufacturing. Despite the attempts of developing disparate approaches and concepts at different scales of economies, the global issues are still worsening. As a consequence, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has introduced the concept of Design for Sustainability (DfS) to evaluate the sustainability aspects of product designs, acknowledging the importance of developing sustainable products (and services). Even though the DfS approach has been recognised as an appropriate base to establish a sustainable global economy, the scope of the assessment still requires further research, specifically with the social impacts assessment. Hence, in this study, we propose a multi-criteria decision support system based on the DfS principles, including an exhaustive set of criteria referred in the Social Life Cycle Assessment framework for the purpose of evaluating three chosen sanitation system designs. We applied the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process to solve the proposed model. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis was performed to understand the effects of the chosen priority weights. The analysis shows that the sanitation system design choice is heavily influenced depending on whether the high importance the packaging and logistics phase or the usage phase, emphasising the need for a comprehensive life-cycle analysis. The research reported in this paper is a step toward realising the targets of DfS at a practice level by simultaneously building on the original proposals and using them to solve real word design selection problems.

Currently, the use of software systems for optimizing the sustainable use of water and energy resources has been implemented in a wide range of productive sectors. In the sector of Water Purification Plants (WPP) the sustainable control of water and energy consumption is carried out by means of advanced Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. The main objective of these SCADA systems is controlling the consumption of these resources in real time. In the majority of the occasions, optimization systems for the sustainability consumption of these resources are not integrated in the SCADA system. With the integration of systems for optimization, the determination in real time of the most viable option for the sustainable management of resources is expected. In this paper, a case study in the Southeast Spain of an advanced automated management system for the optimization of energy and power terms in a WPP with renewable energy based in a Photovoltaic Power Plant (PVPP) is presented. Firstly, the introduction and some additional details for the entire problem are presented. Moreover, the main parts of the software integrated in the SCADA system of the WPP will be detailed.

This research looks at the idea of interactive supplier social networks (SSN’s), a novel and comparatively unexplored area in the field of supply chain management. The paper aims to understand the motivations prompting suppliers in a horizontal supply chain to share knowledge within a supplier network. A social constructionist perspective is employed to explore the factors that motivate/prevent engagement in knowledge sharing using social media tools from a customer and supplier’s perspective across an insurance supply chain. The findings reveal corporate and industrial culture, work routines, technology, and a high regulatory environment can have a limiting effect on the generation of voluntary engagement in knowledge sharing between organizations and their supply chains in this sector.

This paper discusses the use of virtual world technology in relation to the unsustainability of the current levels of greenhouse gas emissions, related to business travel. If it can be demonstrated that the use of virtual worlds enables users to participate in meetings and other events in a manner that benefits the individual and the organisation, without the need for the individuals to meet ‘face to face’, then overall, business travel can be reduced. However creating the virtual environment that engages the user in ‘meaningful’ discourse, requires testing the environment against specific targets. This paper discusses that in the context of Supply Chain Management within the Insurance business, knowledge transfer is a key factor, that is currently conducted through ‘standard’ channels, primarily emails and the telephone. A number of team meetings are also organised, since it is felt that ‘face to face’ contact between members is necessary. Business travel for participants contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, for this study, the use of 3D Virtual World (VW) tools to discover if knowledge sharing and learning within a horizontal supply chain managed by a principal insurer, was effective and reduced the need for ‘face to face’ meetings. A set of web based tools, applications and exercises supporting the formation of communities of inquiry and promoting knowledge transfer and learning, through social interaction is presented. These results are from a pilot study that was run over a four month period across an insurance supply chain, to explore how suppliers and the principal insurer shared knowledge, using these tools. With the IoT (Internet of Things) generating multiple sources of ‘streamed’ data, the potential for using this type of data in a format that allows users to access data that is ‘understandable’ to them, is expanding. Within the insurance industry, and specifically home claims, a key priority is to have current and meaningful data on physical events and conditions available to their stakeholders and members of the supply chain. This is to enable them to make correct and timely decisions on claims, for example, weather related claims. Therefore an environment was designed and created, which used live streaming data from the United States Geological Survey, and a variety of VW tools and techniques to illustrate this data, and to orient it to make it relevant to the home claims teams.

Companies seek to reduce manufacturing lead-time in order to reduce the cost of the production; short lead-times are a major source of potential competitive advantage and also can help achieve internal supply chain optimization and better sustainability. This paper proposes a study on reducing manufacturing lead time. The research methodology based on survey questionnaire and cased study in order to find potential methodologies that can reduce lead-time and its effect on internal supply chain. This research study will present a conceptual framework of the causes of excessive lead-time. The aim is to provide simple strategies for reducing manufacturing lead-time also to provide internal supply chain more efficiency.

Remanufacturing could potentially offer economic and environmental benefits for Indonesian SMEs. The objective of this research is to explore as to how remanufacturing strategy could attain greater resource efficiency through resources consumption reduction and waste minimization. An assessment on resources efficiency has been performed for Indonesian remanufacturing SMEs producing auto parts. The value, contributions and limitations of remanufacturing for achieving resources efficiency were explored and some key issues including organizational, consumer behaviors and government incentives issues have been identified. Accordingly, national resources policy recommendations have been made. Future potential business value that enhances Indonesian economic, social and environmental pillars of sustainability through remanufacturing has been discussed in this paper.

In industry, carbon emissions are mainly produced from the amount of energy used in the manufacturing processes due to the burning of fossil fuels, material of products and transportation. The aim of this paper reports the synergy of integrating life cycle assessment (LCA) and Lean manufacturing to reduce the negative environmental impacts of a plastic injection moulded product. A cross-functional mapping method is used because a number of functional areas such as Lean manufacturing and LCA are involved. This work demonstrated that the adaptation of lean thinking and LCA could minimise negative environmental impacts of a product significantly.

Developing valuable materials from the by-products of paper industry can help to address some environmental and economic issues associated with traditional synthetic composites. Particularly, the management of paper mill sludge (PMS) waste remains an economic and environmental challenge for the pulp and paper industry. 11 million tons of PMS is generated annually in Europe from the wastewater treatment (WWT) process of paper mills. PMS is mostly used in low value applications. However, PMS contains fibers and minerals with physio-chemical properties that exhibit a high potential to substitute some conventional materials in other industries. The research presented in this paper aims to explore new directions for further investigation on PMS material applications by reviewing the literature on PMS materials and subsequently characterizing sludge from 6 different mills. The study shows the technical feasibility, opportunities and technological readiness of fiber and mineral based composites obtained from PMS, such as; cementitious products, polymer reinforcement and fiberboards.

This work reports a general outline on sustainable technologies for the stabilization of collagen and comparative study of 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)carbodiimide (EDC) versus 4-(4,6-dimethoxy [1, 3, 5] triazin-2-yl)-4-methyl-morpholinium chloride (DMTMM) as cross-linking agents of collagen powder. The cross-linking efficiency of these agents on collagen matrixes in the presence of different polyamidoamine dendrimers (PAMAM) has been tested in order to determine the influence of steric hindrance and aminic groups abundance.

Banana fibers have been extracted by mechanical means from banana tree pseudostems, as a strategy to reevaluate banana crops residues. Extracted long fibers are cut to 45 mm length and then immersed into an enzymatic bath for their refining. Conditions of enzymatic treatment have been optimized to produce a textile grade of banana fibers, which have then been characterized. This fiber has then been transformed into yarns and woven to produce a technical textile with different textile structures. Woven material was then used to produce a composite by compression molding, using polypropylene (PP) as polymeric matrix.Once the composite was prepared, mechanical testing was carried out (tensile, flexural and impact tests). Results were compared to those obtained with parts made only of PP and with results composite made with a commercial woven product made of flax.

The present work investigates the manufacturability of different composites reinforced with natural fibres that are hemp and bamboo vinyl. Feasibility of different processes were studied and mechanical properties of obtained composite materials were examined by using non-destructive analysis and tensile tests to assess the manufacturability.Hemp fibres were manufactured by using braiding technology to produce differently oriented textiles. Bamboo reinforcement were employed in form of vinyl sheets. Matrices were made of traditional or innovative polymeric materials. The composite materials were processed through Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM) or Resin Powder Moulding (RPM). Applicability onto different shapes were assessed.The obtained material performances have been compared with both analytical and numerical models to evaluate their applicability.Eventually, results are discussed pointing out foreseen opportunities for the industrial application of investigated materials.

In the last years polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) gained increasing attention as potential sustainable replacement of current plastics from fossil sources. PHAs are biodegradable polymers which can be produced from bacteria exploiting waste as feedstock. In order to bring these polymers on the market, it is necessary to know their properties and assess the effects of industrial processing stages on the final material. For this reason, in this work different industrial PHAs were investigated. These materials were structurally characterized and their thermal properties were assessed. Furthermore, they were subjected to different thermal and thermo—mechanical treatments (various time, temperature and frequency of rotation in the extruder) in order to study the effect of the applied conditions on the properties of the final material.

Pyrolysis of low-density polyethylene in an innovative batch pilot plant, with a hydraulic guard ensuring a safe process, was performed. The influence of process temperature on yield, distribution and composition of products was investigated. The oil/waxes were analyzed by gas chromatography coupled mass spectrometry, while pyrolysis gas was monitored online during the process by micro-gas chromatography. Pyrolysis were carried out at 450, 500, 550 and 600 °C. Results obtained show that low temperatures yield a greater amount of oil/waxes, and a gas enriched in carbon oxides and C₃₊ hydrocarbons. At higher temperatures, the gas fraction, riche in methane and hydrogen, is predominant over liquid products. This process has proved to be a versatile way to recover polyethylene wastes into valuable oils (rich in aliphatic and simple aromatic hydrocarbons) or gas, to be used as petrochemical feedstock or fuel, thus providing a sustainable method for material and energy recovery of waste packaging.

We need to pay attention to both the design and manufacturing and business model approaches when analysing the sustainability of firms. Though there is increasing literature on the sustainable business model, little attention has been paid to solution design’s implication for the sustainability of the business model. In this article, I compare the solution design and business model approaches of two similar small-scale bioenergy solutions (using the high-income context in a developed country and the low-income context in a developing country). The sustainability perspective is integrated into the business model framework, and the implications of technological solutions to business models are analysed. I demonstrate in this study that while a high-tech solution in the high-income context has been able to integrate technological and organisational sustainability into its business model, a low-tech solution in the low-income context has mainly focused on social sustainability, has not paid attention to ecological sustainability and is struggling with financial sustainability.

Resilience design strategies anticipate significant detrimental climate change to create optimal conditions to face the continuous and deep changes of urban environment, acting on the causes (mitigation) and on the effects (adaptation). The paper illustrates a methodology that combines technological and social aspects for the transition to resilient districts and communities with the aim to co-deliver city-based solutions and services and to drive sustainable growth in vulnerable contexts.

The theme of Redistributed Manufacturing (RdM) has gained in interest over recent years. While much research has taken place into the effects of RdM on current manufacturing models very few people have proposed new business models for this concept. The RdM studio is a new approach to business model development that will allow future users to dynamically incorporate data and experiment with new redistributed manufacturing scenarios. An RdM System Dynamics (SD) model is illustrated (as a potential constituent model of the RdM studio) with a case study called ShoeLab that explores RdM scenario generation through parameter sets utilising the SD modelling method. This research provides a valuable platform on which future models and scenarios may be derived.

Recently the concept of the Circular Economy (CE) has attracted growing interest as a novel economic model aiming to foster sustainable economic growth, boost global competitiveness, and generate new jobs. A system-wide disruptive innovation shaping new ecosystems and changing the whole process of value creation is needed to tackle the current challenges and transformation to the CE. This paper asks how disruptive business model innovations work as a change mechanism for the CE. The paper develops a conceptual framework for shaping the industrial systems towards CE ecosystems and proposes how value circles and co-creation of value with a variety of partners are crucial aspects in enabling CE. The paper highlights that the concept of value circles would be beneficial in clarifying the difference to linear value chain models and the co-existence of several overlapping value circles.

The rapid development of electric vehicles (EVs) has caused a problem for the industry: what happens to the batteries at the end of their useful life in EVs? Repurposing those batteries for a less-demanding second-life application, e.g. stationary energy storage, could provide a potential solution to extract more value than just recycling or disposal. This study examines the battery second use (B2U) business models being developed by various actors that generate value through different second-use applications. Based on empirical interview data from stakeholders involved in B2U, this paper presents a typology of current B2U business models – standard, collaborative and integrative business models – and offers implications for designing business models that incorporate sustainability at the core.

The concept of the Circular Economy has recently caught the attention of academia as well and businesses and decision makers offering an attractive solution for an environmentally sustainable economic growth. Companies need to consider how to close material loops, reduce the resources needed and think more about how materials and products are kept in the loop as long as possible. In order to do that, companies need to find new collaboration partners and reconsider the value offered for stakeholders. To solve that, we need new or modified innovation tools and processes to guide businesses in their innovation journey resulting in novel business models in a circular economy. Thus, the aim of this study is to increase our understanding of the circular business model innovation process. Our main focus is to explore what kind of mixed methods create value in circular business model innovation and what kind of challenges there are related to each method and how is it possible to overcome those challenges. The paper highlights the importance of involving different perspectives, stakeholders and using mixed methods during the innovation process.

For a company it is important to improve resource and eco-efficiency in order to save money, the environment and to improve the company’s image. We present a new approach combining Multi-layer Stream Mapping (MSM) and a Business Process Based Monitoring and Control Framework to monitor relevant process variables and use the values as an input for MSM to reduce waste and costs. This combination supports the decision making process and allows to identify major inefficiencies and provides means for more sustainability.

Production data in process industry are proprietary to a company since they are key to the process design and technology expertise. However, data confidentiality restrains industry from sharing results and advancing developments in and across process sectors. Using virtual profiles that simulate the typical operating modes of a given process industry offers an elegant solution for a company to share information with the outside world. This paper proposes a generic methodology to create sector blueprints and applies it to the chemicals industry. It details the profile of a typical chemical site based on essential units and realistic data gathered from existing refineries and chemical plants.

This paper introduces a heuristic approach for industrial symbiosis (IS) facilitators to investigate and instigate better energy and resource management via synergies across process industries. The proposed method studies the industrial system at three levels; regional, cluster and company. At the company level, in-depth information is collected using a pentagonal LESTS (Legal, Economic, Spatial, Technical, Social) survey, which is formulated after weighing the regional effects on the whole system. At the cluster level, an inventory of technological and organisational opportunities is produced, offering leverage for IS activities. A gap analysis between the IS potential of the cluster and the IS appreciation on the industrial sites is visualised via LESTS pentagons. The coupled investigation at company and cluster level results in a list of realisable IS activities, which is then translated into business strategies for each participating company using a SWOT analysis.

IMPROOF will develop and demonstrate the steam cracking furnace of the 21st century by drastically improving the energy efficiency of the current state-of-the-art, in a cost effective way, while simultaneously reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and NO_X per ton of ethylene produced by at least 25%. Therefore, the latest technological innovations in the field of energy efficiency and fouling minimization are implemented and combined, proving that these technologies work properly at TRL 5 and 6 levels. The first steps to reach the ultimate objective, i.e. to deploy the furnace at the demonstrator at commercial scale with the most effective technologies, will be discussed based on novel pilot scale data and modeling results.

The interior relationship between Industrial Ecology, Eco-Efficiency and Industrial Symbiosis has been scarcely investigated in literature. We identify three main aspects linking the concepts, which are ‘Actions’, ‘Stakeholders’ and ‘Value’, and use them to drive the conceptual analysis. Considering the application and implementation, authors conduct a conceptual comparison between Eco-Efficiency and Industrial Symbiosis by using Industrial Ecology as the leading concept. A conceptual framework is developed to uncover the relationship of Industrial Ecology, Eco-Efficiency and Industrial Symbiosis, from a firm level perspective.

The overall aim of the Efficiency Framework is to encourage a culture of continuous improvement and sustainability within manufacturing and process industries. The framework presented supports informed decision-making processes and helps to define strategies for continuous performance improvement. The proposed innovative Efficiency Framework, materialized through the integration of concepts and results provided by eco-efficiency methodology, namely Eco-Efficiency Integrated Methodology for Production Systems (ecoPROSYS) and the lean based resource efficiency assessment method, Multi-layer Stream Mapping (MSM). Thus, the framework assesses simultaneously the environmental, economic and efficiency performance of complex production systems, which helps to identify major inefficiencies and circumstances of low eco-efficiency performance, consequently leading to the definition of improvement priorities. Ultimately, this framework aims to facilitate the overall efficiency performance assessment, by an integrated multi-dimensional analysis, presented as the Total Efficiency Index. The logic behind this index is to combine, for each unit process and for the overall production process, two fundamental efficiency aspects, namely eco-efficiency and operations efficiency.

This paper presents an overview of the work under development within MAESTRI EU-funded collaborative project. The MAESTRI Total Efficiency Framework (MTEF) aims to advance the sustainability of manufacturing and process industries by providing a management system in the form of a flexible and scalable platform and methodology. The MTEF is based on four pillars: (a) an effective management system targeted at process continuous improvement; (b) Efficiency assessment tools to support improvements, optimisation strategies and decision support; (c) Industrial Symbiosis paradigm to gain value from waste and energy exchange; (d) an Internet-of-Things infrastructure to support easy integration and data exchange among shop-floor, business systems and tools.

The increasing rate of production and diffusion of photovoltaic (PV) technologies for industrial and domestic applications urges improvement of the sustainability of their demanufacturing processes in order to reduce the amount of electronic wastes. Sustainability of demanufacturing processes concerns the reduction of energy consumption, the reduction of polluting substances as well as the reduction of the effort spent in recovery of the components. There is not an optimal process so far, provided a number of different approaches have been devised (see e.g. [1–3]). A promising choice relies on the use of thermo-mechanical treatments for inducing a delamination process where interfacial bonding between layers are weakened and, finally, broken inducing separation of the layers [4]. In this paper we present a preliminary industrialization study, based on Finite Element (FE) Analysis, to prove the validity of the new sustainable demanufacturing process endeavouring the delamination process. The analysis is performed searching the optimal thermally induced cycles at cryogenic temperatures. We finally show that it is possible to induce the delamination according to specific operating temperatures.

Awareness about the environmental performance of manufacturing approaches has arisen. Comparative analyses of different manufacturing approaches as well as decision support methods should be developed in the field of metal shaping processes. The present paper aims at tuning a decision support tool for identifying when mass conserving approaches (forming based) are actually preferable over machining processes for manufacturing aluminum based components. A full LCA is developed for comparing the environmental performance of forming and machining approaches as the batch size and geometry complexity hang. The impact of the used metric on the comparative results is analyzed. Results reveal that primary energy can be used as reliable metric for identifying environmentally friendly manufacturing processes.

The purpose of this paper is to present two case studies from the application of Eco Orbit View, a method that extend the mind-set of Lean Management towards environmental performance, and to discuss the potential of broader implementation in medium and small sized manufacturing companies. Eco Orbit View method was developed during Eco Lean Compass project pursued in an international consortium including institution from Poland, Germany and Turkey. It applies low-cost improvements of production processes based on Lean Management in order to bring positive impact both on business and environmental performance. We verified the method on two case studies performed in medium-sized manufacturing companies from Poland and Turkey. In both cases the method brought positive impact on selected business and environmental metrics. Regarding business metrics, implemented improvements were inexpensive or even costless, but at the same time resulted in significant financial gains for the companies. When it comes to the environment, the main achievement was the significant reduction of physical wastes, electric energy and oil consumption. In next steps of Eco Lean Compass project we want to focus on delivering the method to a broad community of companies and develop the Eco Lean Transformation Program to assure the sustainability of the improvements.

This paper presents an extended framework for the classification and categorization of 3D printing services, using the findings of two previous studies (carried out by the authors) as a foundation. The work to date revealed that 3D printing services can be separated into three distinct categories based on the configuration of their design-related and manufacturing-related processes: generative, facilitative and selective services. This study examines in more detail 105 of the 558 originally identified 3D printing service providers in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Benelux countries, with the goal of further clarifying the main drivers, linkages, buildings blocks and modules that shape these three individual branches of services. These configurations will potentially have wide-ranging impact on the supply chain strategies, structures and operations of the future.

Population growth and rising per capita consumption of meat is growing and is expected to further accelerate in future. The production of beef is undoubtedly an high environmental stressor due to land-use change, water and energy consumption and by-products production. This paper focuses on the distribution and transportation processes of the beef slaughtering’s by-products throughout their proper valorization chains. A methodology, inspired to the LCA, and encompassing data collection, simulation, and multi-scenario analysis is proposed and illustrated. This is applied to a real-world case study from the meat industry to showcase the importance of reconciling plant and network design to address both economic and environmental sustainability.

The food & beverage (F&B) industry is among the most water intensive sectors with thousands of litres per hour of raw water requirement. Starting from the statement of this issue, an overview of the evidences from the field and a quick survey of the existing technologies for the raw water saving through its local collection and treatment before discharge, this paper investigates the design of an innovative industrial plant for the water closed-loop recovery, purification and local reuse. Actually, a prototype of such a plant is working within a mid-size F&B company operating in the Emilia-Romagna region, Italy. The plant nominal capacity is of about 45,000 l/h of discharged wastewater. It integrates water ultra-filtration and reverse osmosis technologies. Details of the functional module design and of the logic of control are in the present paper. Finally, few preliminary evidences from the plant field-test are provided.

Work in confined space is a high-risk activity posing a serious life-threatening hazard to workers who perform it. Accidents in confined spaces frequently lead to multiple fatalities. The cause of accidents and fatalities due to confined space work is related to the lack of awareness about the presence and the risks of such hazardous workplaces. This paper introduces a methodology for the identification of confined spaces in industry. The aim is to provide a useful tool for helping researchers and practitioners to recognize of confined spaces in industry. Four different characteristics of confinement are investigated: geometric features, access, internal configuration, and atmosphere and environment. The proposed methodology includes the definition of the Confined Space Risk Index (CSRI) for the analysis of the risk related to the investigated confined space. Finally, two case studies show the application of the proposed methodology to two suspected confined spaces in industry.

This paper aims at clarifying the relationship between two unconventional manufacturing processes, the additive manufacturing and the vacuum casting, as a sustainable way in developing prototypes and small batches, even in the presence of complex geometries. The rapid reproduction of a rhinoceros toy figure was used as case study. Starting from the 3D CAD model, acquired by reverse engineering techniques, additive manufacturing and vacuum casting processes permitted to realize its replicas. Complex functional parts in small series were manufactured with high precision, accuracy and enhanced surface finish. Furthermore, significant reductions in time and costs, both for development or production comparing to other technologies were highlighted.

Additive Manufacturing is under the spotlight as potential disruptive technology, particularly for the production of complex-shaped structural metallic components. However, the actual AM process capabilities present some limitations in achieving the strict part quality requirements imposed by the aerospace and automotive sectors. Therefore, the integration of AM and conventional manufacturing represents an emerging scenario to be investigated. In this paper, a pure machining process and a hybrid production route (based on EBM and finish machining) are compared. The influence of material usage-related factors on costs and energy demand is discussed. The results prove that, despite precise process judgments are case-specific, the proposed methodologies are suitable to provide guidelines for identifying the optimal manufacturing route under multiple design objectives.

Sustainability within manufacturing is an increasingly important topic globally. One course of action being explored is to produce more parts ‘right first time’ so supporting an increasingly sustainable manufacturing process. This paper explores the Renishaw “productive process pyramid” and considers how it can be integrated into the ALM process. The pyramid is currently used to identify how layers of control can systematically remove variation from conventional machining processes. This application is focussed to consider how the variables that occur within the ALM manufacturing process can impact on the quality of the parts mechanically and geometrically. This approach can then inform the process foundation and process setting stages and enhance levels of in-process control.

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is gaining increasing interest as a sustainable manufacturing technology. One important aspect of AM is the opportunities it presents for customization by increasing involvement of customer in the design and manufacturing process. This paper presents a review of literature examining proposed future scenarios for AM implementation, with particular interest in the way customers are engaged in the process, and the effect that this might have on the future of AM supply chains. 27 distinct scenarios for future AM implementations were identified, with Engineer-to-Order and Make-to-Order proving most popular approaches, alongside a trend towards localized production. Although structured methods are available, a “genius” approach was found to have been employed in developing the majority of the scenarios evaluated.

This paper presents the development of a CAD conceived to support the modelling of lightweight and lattice structures just from the initial stages of the design process. A new environment, called LWSM (acronym of LightWeight Structures Modelling), has been implemented in Python programming language in an open-source CAD software to allow the fast modelling of several sandwich structures or the filling of solid parts with cubic and tetrahedral lattice structures which can be produced by Additive Manufacturing (AM) techniques. Several tests have been carried out to validate the tool, one of which is included in the paper. The design of a bracket component inside LWSM using a traditional dense geometry and a lattice structure is described. The use of Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) functions helps the user in the design of innovative structures which can produced only with AM technologies. A significant change in the shape of the part respect to traditional solutions is noticed after the use of DfAM functions by experimenters: FEM analysis confirms a strong weight reduction.

Unlike subtractive manufacturing processes, by their own nature additive technologies offer the potential to reduce both raw material consumption and production waste. The positive impact of Additive Manufacturing on sustainability is more evident for those mass consumption products that are characterized by a short lifecycle. Nevertheless, in order to take full advantage of these technologies and let them achieve their full potential, a great change is needed in the behaviour and attitude of consumers. Compromises may be necessary to accommodate technological limitations, and customers may need to prioritize between functional and aesthetic product characteristics. The positive impact of additive manufacturing on sustainability is more evident for those mass consumption products that are characterized by a short lifecycle. The material flow and sustainability of 3D printing are described in this paper for the manufacturing of mobile case covers, and compared to those of mass production injection moulding.

Additive Manufacturing (AM) and 3D printing are drivers for material savings in manufacturing. Owing to the continuous diffusion of 3D printing driven by low-cost entry-level material extrusion printers, sustainability of a so popular AM technology is of paramount importance. Therefore, recycling 3D printed wastes and 3D parts again at the end of their life is an important issue to be addressed. Research efforts are directed towards the improvement of the biodegradability of 3D printing filaments and the replacement of oil based feedstock with bio-based compostable plastics. The aim of this work is to describe the state of the art about development and use of recycled or biodegradable filaments in 3D printing. Beyond a critical review of the literature, open issues and research opportunities are presented.

The renewed interest for city buses and the constant growth of the urban population worldwide will contribute to inflate the global market size to more than 275,000 vehicles a year in 2020, up 60% compared to the current levels. Diesel buses are the most popular choice, even though their future market share will bear the brunt of shale gas discovery and advances in energy storage technology. This paper describes the dynamics of the city bus market and a business idea to enter the European public transportation market with sustainable vehicles featuring a new design platform, electric powertrains, and composite technology.

The pursuance of energy efficiency is a constant endeavour in modern mobility. Accordingly, several institutions worldwide have been investing time and resources in developing solar powered vehicles, directing their efforts towards a continual search of technical solutions aiming at attaining the highest energy efficiency levels. This work investigates and compares the mechanical behaviour of a front suspension wheel hub, subjected to its operational forces, when made by three different materials: aluminium, carbon or basalt fiber reinforced composites. Despite of investigating the sole mechanical response of materials, the comparison focuses on the feasibility of applying light and stiff composites in structural parts in order to improve the energy efficiency in vehicles due to weight reduction whilst granting safety.

The paper introduces a brief review about the history of solar cars, focusing on electronic aspects and with slight glances at the history of such vehicle in Japan, particularly. This emergent technology, by its conceptual nature, presents as limiting factor the availability of energy prevenient from sunlight, which induces challenging engineering endeavors in order to make such vehicle feasible, although the expectation around it noticeable. Hence, arising technologies have presented innovative solutions with the aim at minimizing running losses and improving energy efficiency in general. The present work explains in detail some design aspect inherent of solar vehicles, as well as the role it plays in a sustainable society.

Efficiency record commercial silicon solar panels convert about 25% of the sunlight into energy while the vast majority of conventional panels convert between 15% and 16%. The main factors of energy loss are the loss by light reflection on the cell surface and the loss by the energy emitted in the UV and IR band which is directly transmitted and/or converted to heat without being harnessed by the cell. To reduce these losses, it is proposed the use of rare earth doped Mg₂SiO₄ films. Preliminary absorption and emission tests for up and down conversion have indicated that the use of Mg₂SiO₄:Er3+, as a cell coating generates the conversion of IR energy into VIS energy, allowing the solar cell to use this energy. The presented forsterite films antireflection property, together with the erbium upconversion properties, indicates the Mg₂SiO₄:Er3+ as promising to increase the commercial silicon-based solar cells efficiency.

This paper presents an experimental method to model the temperature response of the inverters of the solar car Emilia 3 which is the vehicle build by the Italian Onda Solare team for the World Solar Challenge 2013. Object of this paper is using the experimental data collected to create a thermal model of the inverters to predict dangerous situations and adding it to the energetic model of the overall vehicle powertrain to better simulate racing conditions and help the race strategy planning. The data is elaborated to identify the experimental transfer function between motor current and inverter temperature. The function is validated with the current measurements and its behavior was found to be consistent with the real temperature data.

In the past decades, sustainable means of transportation have become an important issue once they are potentially able to supply modern transport needs whilst not harming the environment. Accordingly to this general interest, solar vehicles have been developed by several institutions worldwide to participate in international class races, promoting this research field. As the competitiveness increased, solar technologies evolved toward noteworthy solutions for a modern and sustainable mobility. Hence, this work intends to provide a general overview on solar vehicles, particularly regarding the main design and manufacturing features that allowed to increase energy efficiency, considering the relevance of this factor for solar cars. Due to the huge amount of information available, a limited number of aspects was selected for further analysis, mainly related to design and engineering, such as: weight reduction, aerodynamics and kinematics, mechanics and advanced materials.

This research aims at exploring and tapping the emerging market of solar powered technology as a way to fuel the transport industry in a vision of modern and sustainable mobility. It is based on three main aspects: an overview of solar powered vehicles and their recent developments; the current market research and analysis, including industry analysis, country analysis and market trends in the specific case of fast developing country as India; the assessment on potential investment opportunities and strategies toward an active role on the developing solar car market.

In the case of solar vehicles, since the primary necessity is to optimise the energy efficiency during motion, many efforts are addressed by designers in searching the perfect aerodynamics. It means, in particular, the minimization of the drag force at cruising speeds and an elaborated vehicle’s Computer-Aided Design (CAD) are the principal result of this activity. Despite, these efforts can be nullified by geometrical tolerances emerging from manufacturing. In this paper, the effects of tolerances introduced by composite manufacturing processes are investigated combining 3D scanning technology and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). After the solar car manufacturing, a reverse engineering process is executed with the aim to scan the vehicle’s body and compare it to the initial theoretical design. Geometric deviations are found and their aerodynamic consequences are evaluated in terms of aerodynamic losses.

Over the last 30 years the number of methods for Eco-design increased dramatically. LCA in Eco-assessment has established itself as a reference methodology and with it some tools that reached an international resonance. On the contrary, in the Eco-improvement world, the growth of methods has not been accompanied by a method or a tool better than other ones. One of the main reasons is the different type of users; there are people skilled in problem solving and those who have no experience. In addition, in order to be universal, the methods based on guidelines often do not go into too much detail, thus limiting their effectiveness. The balance between completeness and simplicity is the key issue around which the authors have attempted in recent years.In such a context, this paper aims at solving this contradiction and proposes an ontological framework to build guidelines for eco-improvements. Their content has been structured into five parts, according to well-known conceptual design frameworks, such as Function-Behaviour-Structure (FBS) methods and similar.The result is a set of over than two hundreds suggestions that can be comfortably used through a web portal following a recommended step-by-step methodological path.

As creativity is increasingly important in order to achieve differentiation and competitiveness in industry, designers face the challenge of conceiving and rating large numbers of new product development options. The authors’ recent studies show the effectiveness of ideation procedures guided by stimuli that are submitted to designers in the form of abstract benefits. A rich collection of said benefits has been created to this scope; more specifically, the authors have performed a detailed clustering of the categories described in TRIZ ideality, i.e. useful functions, attenuation of undesired effects and reduction of consumed resources. Aspects related to sustainability and environmental friendliness manifestly appear in the list of stimuli and these issues are reflected in several ideas emerged in initial experiments. However, many promising product development objectives conflict with sustainability or, at least, their adherence to eco-design is arguable. The paper assesses the share of ideas that are supposed to comply with sustainability in experiments described in recent literature. Subsequently, it intends to stimulate a discussion about the introduction of measures to attract attention of designers on sustainability in the critical early product development stages also when green aspects do not represent the fundamental driver to achieve greater customer value. As well, it discusses which sustainability aspects are worth being considered adequately during the very early design phases and which ones could result as exceedingly constraining.

Sustainable design aims at the creation of physical objects, environment and services that complies to optimize social, economic, and ecological impact. QFD is able to assess the product design by the choice and definition of parameters that can be qualitatively discussed. The purpose of design is to meet a need in new ways and in innovative ways. In this context, the QFD aims at evaluating the quality of a design process. TRIZ is a design method that aim at defining and overcome some critical issue that can affect the development of a product, by means of potential innovative solutions. In this paper QDF and TRIZ analysis have been adopted in order to validate a design method for direct open moulds, by a new strategy: hybrid manufacturing can reduce the production time, the use of material, the energy and the waste consumption, employing subtractive and addictive techniques efficiently combined.

ITree, a step by step procedure for supporting eco-assessment and eco-design is presented. The assessment phase is carried out combining life cycle assessment, for calculating the environmental impacts, with an innovative technique, called “IFR index”, for selecting the main LCA criticalities. IFR index is inspired by Ideal Final Result tool from TRIZ, the Theory of inventive problem solving. Also part of the design phase is based on the use of TRIZ: a set of Eco-guidelines, have been conceived introducing TRIZ fundamentals onto green design. An industrial case study dealing with the production of a chemical product for the agricultural market illustrates how the method has been applied.

An Eco-design methodology based on two abridged Life Cycle Assessment (aLCA) tools and TRIZ Eco guidelines is presented. This method is one of the outputs of the European project REMake, which developed and tested new approaches for eco-innovation and optimization of energy and materials for 250 manufacturing SMEs in six countries. Unlike other Eco-design methods, this method couples a simplified but solid assessment phase, realized with an abridged LCA, to an advanced and structured product improvement phase (that normally consists of basic design suggestions). A set of over 300 Eco-design guidelines, coming from problem solving techniques as TRIZ and conceptual design are selectively introduced to develop design variants to the given system with the aim of providing a lower global environmental impact. The advantages and limits of the method have been evaluated versus other methods inside European project REMake, and in this article are presented two case study realized in an independent way by two research groups that have tested it in two industrial case studies.