Design optimization for environmental sustainability: a framework to select the best eco-design strategy

DS 122: Proceedings of the Design Society: 24th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED23)

Year: 2023
Editor: Kevin Otto, Boris Eisenbart, Claudia Eckert, Benoit Eynard, Dieter Krause, Josef Oehmen, Nadège Troussier
Author: Cappelletti, Federica; Manuguerra, Luca; Rossi, Marta; Germani, Michele; Sartini, Mikhailo
Series: ICED
Institution: Università Politecnica delle Marche
Section: Design Methods
Page(s): 1297-1306
DOI number: https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2023.130
ISBN: -
ISSN: -

Abstract

Environmental sustainability represents an unavoidable design driver. The consciousness of the importance of tackle the topic of environmental sustainability since the first stages of the product lifecycle is slowly spreading through enterprises. However, although they reach this grade of awareness, it is hard to introduce additional considerations to the traditional drivers of functionality, manufacturability, assembly, cost, etc. Therefore, it is crucial to identify methods and tools to support companies in efficiently integrating environmental sustainability issues in their design process. This paper proposes an approach to identify the inputs, functionality and outputs suitable to each industrial reality. Its core is the eco-design tool matrix, that estimates the tool implementation time and suggests proper outputs; from this the necessary inputs and functional blocks are derived. The approach is applied to the cases of two Italian industries, very different one another. This proves the wide applicability of the approach. The definition of a validation procedure represents the next steps to identify the benefits of the approach.

Keywords: Ecodesign, Design process, Design management, Design methodology