Approach for Sustainability Criteria and Product Life-Cycle Data Simulation in Concept Selection

Abstract

Companies struggle with identifying relevant sustainability aspects strategically, assessing alternative solutions quantitatively, and making trade-offs. This paper reports results from a prescriptive study with an aerospace company, and presents the Sustainability Criteria And product life-cycle Data Simulation (SCADS) approach. Based on strategic integration of sustainability indicators, this approach aims to enable visualisation and comparison of the sustainability implications of different concepts in early design phases of product development.

Approach to Sustainability-Based Assessment of Solution Alternatives in Early Stages of Product Engineering

“…In doing so, detailed statement about one of the three dimensions and its criteria is lost. Kwok (2020) et al present an visualisation of the assessment results through various diagrams from which no overall statement on sustainability is possible and which are more difficult to interpret the more criteria are included in the assessment (Kwok et al, 2020). In order for product engineers to be able to assess developed product concepts and initial designs against each other and individually, this paper presents a procedure and a new visualisation method to identify the need for change in sustainability dimensions.…”

The Need for New Product Development Capabilities from Digitalization, Sustainability, and Servitization Trends

“…Liu et al [68] therefore propose a method to particularly evaluate the sustainability of smart PSS and suggest how to weight the different sustainability criteria in such a method. Kwok et al [69] also discuss how to give weighting to different sustainability criteria in support tools for sustainability assessment in early design phases. However, which of and how the sustainability criteria are selected in the first place is even more important as the evaluation will be of less value or even misleading if the correct sustainability criteria are not selected.…”

“…However, which of and how the sustainability criteria are selected in the first place is even more important as the evaluation will be of less value or even misleading if the correct sustainability criteria are not selected. There are different approaches between the method suggested by Liu et al [68] and the method proposed by Kwok et al [69]. Liu et al [68] use a few criteria covering The literature also states that digitalization and servitization work best together [48] and PSS are rarely implemented without ICT, according to Belvedere et al [61].…”

“…Liu et al [68] use a few criteria covering all three dimensions of sustainability, i.e., the social, economic, and ecological dimensions, and a PSS life-cycle on an overall level. Kwok et al [69] include socio-ecological sustainability indicators covering a product life-cycle, which are derived systematically from a product sustainability design space [70]. This approach has its strength in that it is based on a backcasting approach from scientific scrutinized overarching sustainability principles [27], in comparison to other models that have criteria identified from a forecasting and ad hoc approach, e.g., suggested in Bertoni [71].…”

Derive and Integrate Sustainability Criteria in Design Space Exploration of Additive Manufactured Components

“…Altogether, this calls for research that investigates the opportunities to develop design support that enables engineers to explore the design space of additive manufactured components while applying a systemic sustainability perspective. Adding to previous research on integration approaches enabling quantitative assessment of sustainability criteria based on design parameters, e.g., Kwok et al (2020), this research aims to address the following research question:…”