Sustainable medical device design in the context of a health emergency is an unexplored area of research. The urgency to save lives implies that eco-design strategies may not be considered. However, some of these strategies could lead to cost and manufacturing time reduction, implying that more units could be produced, and more patients reached. This paper aims to provide feasible eco-design strategies that could be shared with the stakeholders involved in the product design and manufacturing of emergency ventilators for Covid-19. The objective is to help tackle the Covid-19 crisis in a more sustainable way, and increase the access to healthcare of people requiring assisted ventilation during the health emergency.Adopting a Whole Systems Design perspective (Blizzard & Klotz, 2012), this research has applied the Holistic Design Framework (Aranda-Jan et al., 2016) and the Eco-design Strategy Wheel (Brezet & Hemel, 1997) to elaborate preliminary strategies aligned with the emergency design objectives. Different design for sustainability tools, approaches and principles have been used to discuss, analyse and provide a final set of recommended strategies. These can be grouped in four categories: design for assembly, extension of product lifetime, usage of materials, and lean manufacturing. Despite further efforts are needed to overcome implementation challenges identified during the definition of strategies, it is expected that the above recommendations can be put in practice in a short-term to bring benefits in terms of better environmental impact, lower costs and total manufacturing time.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.