Evaluation of product design in environmentally conscious manufacturing

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Rivera-Becerra ◽  
Li Lin
Keyword(s):  
Product Design ◽  
Environmentally Conscious ◽  
Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing

Indices for Comparative Waste Assessment in Environmentally-Conscious Manufacturing

1998 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Sheng ◽  
E. Hertwich
Keyword(s):  
Printed Circuit Boards ◽  
Pollution Prevention ◽  
System Level ◽  
Waste Streams ◽  
Environmentally Conscious ◽  
Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing ◽  
Government Sector ◽  
Selection Decisions ◽  
The Government ◽  
Process Level

With the expansion of pollution-prevention initiatives in the government sector, development of certification and eco-labeling mechanisms in foreign trade, and the emergence of “green” market drivers for consumer demand, industry is under increasing pressure to evaluate the “life-cycle” waste streams which emanate from their products and manufacturing processes. While much research has been devoted to the study of “system-level” design-for-environment (i.e. design for disassembly, serviceability, modularity), little attention has been given to the influence of planning and design decisions at the unit manufacturing process level, which has a significant impact on waste streams through material, catalyst, parameter and feature selection decisions. One of the most pressing issues in environmentally-conscious manufacturing is the ability to compare the environmental impacts of dissimilar waste streams to formulate the above decisions. This paper presents an overview of the hierarchical levels of comparative waste assessment which links process-level emissions to immediate, site-wide, and eco-system impacts. Significant issues to be addressed are: (1) the aggregation of data collection required for each level of decision-making, (2) the range of environmental effects needed to be analyzed at each level, (3) the uncertainty present at different levels of data aggregation, (4) the influence of site-specific (fate and transport) factors, and (5) the transformation of environmental information into metrics usable in detailed design and planning of products and processes. Case studies in the fabrication of metal parts and printed circuit boards are presented.

Comparison of environmental performance between plastic and steel fuel tanks

2002 ◽  
Vol 216 (11) ◽  
pp. 1443-1457 ◽  
Author(s):  
C-y Tung ◽  
M H Wang
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Product Design ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Environmentally Conscious ◽  
Performance Technique ◽  
Life Cycle Design ◽  
Fuel Tanks ◽  
Environmentally Conscious Design ◽  
Whole Life Cycle

Increasing awareness of environmental burdens has led companies and designers to initiate design for the environment (DFE) programmes, which consider the design of products from the ‘cradle to grave’ and is also known as ‘life-cycle design’. In this paper, the use of a novel environmental performance technique to be used at the early stage of product design is presented. This technique, which is to be used as a framework for green product design, is demonstrated in this paper by evaluating the environmental performance between plastic and steel fuel tanks. The fuel tank comparison can be divided into five steps. In the first four steps, a modified house of quality (HOQ) is used to analyse the performance of fuel tanks in terms of requirements of environmentally conscious design. The final step is an overall assessment that synthesizes the results from the previous four analyses. As a result, the comprehensive environmental effects in the whole life cycle of fuel tanks are captured in the early stage of design.

Development of a structural model of environmentally conscious manufacturing drivers

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (8) ◽  
pp. 1195-1208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Varinder Kumar Mittal ◽  
Kuldip Singh Sangwan
Keyword(s):  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Manufacturing Industry ◽  
Structural Model ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Environmentally Conscious ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing

Purpose – Manufacturing firms consume energy and natural resources in highly unsustainable manner and release huge amounts of green house gases leading to many economic, environmental and social problems; from local waste disposal to climate change. Consciousness about these issues has lead to a new manufacturing paradigm of environmentally conscious manufacturing (ECM). There exist many social, legislative, policy, economic, internal, and environmental factors which can motivate and/or force industry to adopt ECM. The purpose of this paper is to identify the drivers for ECM, developing a model of these drivers using statistical analysis and testing the model using structural equation modeling (SEM) technique. Design/methodology/approach – The basic steps of methodology are ECM driver development, survey instrument development, data collection, model proposition, and model validation. The main data analysis approaches are exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and SEM to develop a model of drivers and validating the same based on the data collected from the manufacturing industry. Findings – The reliable, valid, and tested model has three types of drivers – internal, policy, and economic. It has been found through hypothesis testing that internal drivers for the implementation of ECM are positively related to policy and economic drivers; and policy drivers are positively related to economy drivers. This research is expected to help government and industry in developing policies and strategies for the successful implementation of ECM. Practical implications – The novelty of this study is that it provides the relationship among the drivers which can be leveraged by the managers to focus on the root drivers for smooth and effective implementation of ECM. Originality/value – This paper provides new theoretical insight into the factors motivating the industry to implement ECM systems in the industry with special focus on manufacturing sector of emerging economies.

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