A taxonomy for product shape analysis to integrate in early environmental impact estimations

Abstract

Eco design and sustainable design are words with increasing relevance in the development of new products. One of the main reasons is the growing worry about the environmental issues that the planet is having nowadays, hence the demand for products with this aspect included. Now designers have the opportunity to adapt useful tools to estimate the environmental impact of a design concept in order to develop environmentally friendly products. However, it is only in the last stages of design process where design teams have enough information to calculate the impact of a proposal. This calculation is a tedious, expensive and demanding activity and involving a high level of knowledge about materials, manufacturing processes and eco-design strategies. For this reason, environmental impact estimations gain relevance in the early stages of the design process, where more risks can be taken with a lower cost. This article suggests a taxonomy to analyze product's shape; in order to offer a structured and systematic way of performing a morphology classification, being able to integrate this subjective aspect to other necessary variables needed to estimate the environmental impact. It offers a way to understand how shape, material and Manufacturing process are key aspects to make environmental B Lina-María Agudelo

Sustainable Product Innovation and Consumer Communication

“…However, it is not as flexible and effective as the early design phase (conceptual design phase) in capturing the holistic sustainability of a product. Therefore, it is important to identify risks as early as possible in the design process to address and mitigate them at a lower cost [6]. However, when it comes to sustainable design, it is difficult to convert the "uncertain" variables into design requirements [66].…”

“…Sustainability can be achieved by developing products that are more sustainable than the existing state [4,5]. On one hand, from the perspective of life-cycle management (LCM), the product development phase determines the materials, suppliers, manufacturing methods and costs, as well as the value chain actors during the service phase, which is the most controllable and effective phase to avoid potential sustainability risks and reduce costs [6]. For sustainable product and service innovation, the measurement of the environmental and socio-economic performance are significant indications for decisionmaking, ecolabelling scheme, marketing, etc.…”

Sustainable product development and service approach for application in industrial lighting products

“…This method is derived consid-ering that most sustainable impacts of the products are determined at the design stage, which forms the LCM perspective. Moreover, improving sustainability in the design stage is cost-effective as it can be conveniently controlled ( Agudelo et al 2017 ).…”

A conceptual tool for environmentally benign design: development and evaluation of a “proof of concept”

“…Thus, a solution comprises of several decomposed sub-solutions, each resolved via a working structure, working principle, organ, and part each with a form. Therefore, the following method of EI estimation of a solution at the conceptual stage is proposed by the following equation: which draws relevant information from any life cycle inventory (LCI) database for “Part” level, upon considering the volume associated to it by its form or shape (Agudelo et al ., 2017). The method subsequently calculates the EI for each of its hierarchically higher solution definition subcategories, that is, oR, WP, and WS.…”