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PublicationDecision support tool to derive sustainable product configurations as a basis for conceptual design( 2018)Developing sustainable products requires a thorough understanding of the product and its environmental, economic and social impact. In particular decision-making in conceptual design has a large influence on sustainability performance of the final product but still remains widely unsupported. Hence, an Engineering Decision Support System (EDSS) and a corresponding method is proposed which assists system engineers in evaluating and comparing various product concepts in early design phases. In this paper the EDSS concept is elaborated and demonstrated on the example of a pedelec drive system.
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PublicationBenefits and obstacles of sustainable product development methods( 2017)In the last few years, numerous approaches have been introduced for supporting design engineers in developing more sustainable products. However, so far, these efforts have not led to the establishment of a commonly acknowledged standard methodology for Sustainable Product Development (SPD). This brings into question the relevance of developing new methods and calls for more efforts in testing the available ones. This article provides a reflection about the benefits and obstacles of applying existing SPD approaches to a real product development project. It reports the results of a project aimed at developing a new mobility solution under the constraints of sustainability-related targets. This project has led to the development of a new pedelec concept, focusing on the substitution of small passenger cars with the help of three SPD methods - Design for Sustainability Guidelines, Product Sustainability Index, and Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment. These methods have proved to be generally beneficial, thanks to a combination of qualitative and quantitative perspectives. However, the multitude of criteria offered by the methods put forth difficulties in evaluating which sustainability aspects are relevant and therefore lead to higher effort for information retrieval analysis and decision processes. Furthermore, the methods still lack an integrated perspective on the product, the corresponding services and the overarching system.
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PublicationEmpirical study on aesthetics as an influencing factor on sustainability( 2017)Considering pressing challenges for human life, such as climate change or resource scarcity, sustainability has become an important constraint in today's value creation. While customer awareness towards sustainability increases, the average product lifetime is observed as declining at the same time. One reason in this context is the phenomenon of psychological obsolescence which makes functional products abundant due to introduction of a new product with better features or effective marketing. Aesthetic product design can be an important lever to solve this problem by increasing attachment of the consumer to the product. Hence, this paper focusses on aesthetics and design as a new influencing factor on sustainability of technical products. Within this paper, an empirical study is presented which aims at pinpointing the interrelations between product characteristics and sustainability using a simple example (wristwatch). Based on the results implications for the development of new, more sustainable products are discussed.
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PublicationA systematic literature review on modular product design( 2016)The product architecture has a significant influence on all phases of the product life cycle. Many literature sources claim modular product design offers a large range of advantages for addressing this influence. For example, it enables mass customisation, allows environmentally friendly end-of-life strategies, reduces development costs and allows efficient work in loosely coupled organisations. However, the generally low level of justification of these advantages together with the lack of commonly accepted theoretical references leads to a rather scattered view of the potential of modularisation. Moreover, the diversity of methodological approaches and the lack of common vocabulary represent a challenge for standardisation of practices and may hinder systematic implementation in product development. In particular, more guidance may be required to allow product development teams to choose the right modularisation approach that fits in with their objectives. This article summarises published literature in order to introduce a common language in the field of product modularisation and to build the theoretical basis of a multi-purpose approach - termed 'modularization for X'. It is based on a systematic literature review covering a corpus of 163 publications, provides a structured compilation of drivers, design principles and metrics for modularisation, and identifies challenges for further research efforts.
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PublicationTarget-oriented modularization - Addressing sustainability design goals in product modularization( 2015)Through modularization, a large range of sustainability goals can be addressed in design, e.g. environmentally friendly end-of-life or improved MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) processes. The development of methods for product modularization raised increasing interest in recent years. However, published methods for product modularization still lack of flexibility and standardization. Numerous methods have been developed that are defined for one or a given list of design goals. As a result, it is still difficult for engineers to find and apply the right method for a defined set of design goals. In this paper, the field of modular product design methods has been analyzed with the aim to develop a Target-oriented Modularization Method that allows defining modular product structure according to user-defined design goals. The introduced method is demonstrated on the example of a Garrett GT2860R turbocharger.
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PublicationMulti-criteria decision making as a tool for sustainable product development: Benefits and obstacles( 2015)For developing sustainable products design engineers need to foresee diverse interrelations between a product's characteristics and its economic, social and environmental impacts. In order to support this complex task a wide range of design methods has been developed. Retrospective analytical methods like Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) require a large amount of information and are thus utilized when important design decisions are already made. Prospective methods are rather generic (e.g. checklists) and too broad to be helpful in concrete design decisions. In this paper, the integration of discrete decision trees with LCSA is proposed for shifting multi-criterial quantitative analysis to earlier development. On the basis of sustainability indicators Pareto-optimal decision-paths for given material- and process alternatives along the product lifecycle can be compared up-front. Resulting benefits and obstacles are illustrated by evaluating value creation options of a bicycle frame.
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PublicationDesign and manufacturing of a sustainable pedelec( 2015)To facilitate the transition towards sustainable manufacturing, current practices and mechanisms for value creation need to be reconsidered along the whole product lifecycle. However, academic research on sustainability is still bound to narrow fields of applications. In this study, a multi-disciplinary research project is presented that focuses on the development of a sustainable pedal electric cycle (Pedelec) from a first idea to a ready-to-use prototype. The results of the project show how different scientific approaches for bottom-up improvement can be applied together in a concrete case. A holistic view on the product lifecycle proved as a meaningful framework for that purpose.
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PublicationRessourceneffizientes Produktdesign durch PLM-integrierte Generierung und Auswahl von Produktvarianten( 2015)
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PublicationWissensbasierte nachhaltige Produktentwicklung - Systematische Auswahl und Kombination von Methoden zur Entscheidungsunterstützung( 2014)Die Entwicklung der Taxonomie stellt einen Grundstein zur Auswahl geeigneter Methoden zur Entstehung nachhaltiger Produkte dar. Hierbei wurde deutlich, dass das Fehlen prozeduraler Informationen die Anwendung zahlreicher Methoden verhindert. Durch die Betrachtung der Kategorien konnten Lücken in der methodischen Unterstützung der Entwicklung nachhaltiger Produkte bezüglich der sozialen und ökonomischen Dimension der Nachhaltigkeit, der Adressierung von Anforderungen und Dienstleistungen, der Eignung für Prozessverbesserungen und der Unterstützung für die Fertigungsplanung sowie den entsprechenden Phasen der Produktentstehung identifiziert werden. Zudem wurde eine Forschungslücke geschlossen, indem auftretende Informationen und Informationsobjekte bei der Anwendung von Methoden zur nachhaltigen Produktentstehung anhand des Referenz-PEP vergleichend identifiziert und analysiert wurden. Durch diese geschaffene Übersicht wird die Möglichkeit eröffnet, die bisher verfügbare methodische Unterstützung der Entstehung nachhaltiger Produkte durchgängig über den PEP informationstechnisch abzubilden und damit dem Anwender ein universelles Hilfsmittel an die Hand zu geben. Die Kombination der Methoden wurde durch deren teilweise fehlende Zuordnung zu abgrenzbaren Phasen des PEPs erschwert. Die Integration von Methoden in bestehende PEPs ohne Anpassungen wurde ebenfalls als potenzielle Schwachstelle identifiziert. Durch ein Protokoll der während der Methodenanwendung abverlangten bzw. generierten Informationen konnte nachgewiesen werden, dass diese stark methodenspezifisch und damit heterogen vorliegen. Zudem erschweren wechselnde Bezugsobjekte und Präzision der In- und Outputs deren potenzielle informationstechnische Verarbeitung. Weiterhin wurde erkannt, dass verschiedene Methodenbündel voneinander abweichende Informationen verarbeiten und damit zu veränderten Entscheidungswegen führen. Generell überwiegen Informationen mit Bezug auf den Lebenszyklus des untersuchten Objektes. Die Übereinstimmungen der abgefragten Informationsobjekte nehmen im Laufe des PEP ab. Dies deutet darauf hin, dass eine parallele Kombination von Methoden in späteren Phasen zu Erkenntnisgewinn durch zusätzliche Perspektiven bei geringerer Doppelarbeit führen kann.
