The Ecodesign of Complex Electromechanical Systems: Prioritizing and Balancing Performance Fields, Contributors and Solutions

In the Product Development (PD) of complex mechanical and electromechanical systems, such as machine-tools, mapping the relationships between technical behavior, environmental and cost impacts brings new challenges. Having technological advances, cost drivers and environmental performance under surveillance, manufacturers and designers are expected to provide eco-efficient systems keeping a competitive price. This introduces a new set of design functions with increased complexity due to the new interdependent variables, requiring complementary technical, environmental and cost assessments. The redesign study of a sheet metal forming machine-tool, a press brake, is here used by the authors to present the first assessment of a proper methodology to support the main decision processes and to illustrate the technical and technological trade-offs faced by a PD team in order to achieve the global design objectives. The design process aimed to reduce the environmental footprint of the machine-tool and simultaneously to improve the bending process accuracy. A Voice of Customer (VOC) study was carried out in order to assess the receptiveness of press-brake users to the targeted product specifications and price changes sensitivity. The research effort was mainly focused in defining and testing the applicability of different assessment and measurement tools for the Ecodesign of a press-brake.