Eco-modular product architecture identification and assessment for product recovery

Abstract

In order to improve the efficiency of disassembly and product recovery of an abandoned product at the endof-life stage, it is essential to develop modular product architecture by considering manufacturing and recovering processes in early product design stage. In this paper, a novel concept of a design methodology is introduced to develop eco-modular product architecture and assess the modularity of the architecture from the viewpoint of product recovery. Eco-modular product architecture contributes to enhancing product recovery processes by recycling and reusing modules without full disassembly at component or material levels. It leads to less consumption of natural resources and less landfill damage to the environment. Three sustainable modular drivers, namely, interface complexity, material similarity, and lifespan similarity, are introduced to reconstruct the modular architecture of commercial products into the eco-modular architecture. Alternatives of modular architectures are identified by Markov Cluster Algorithm based on these sustainable modular drivers and physical interconnections of the components of product architecture. To select the eco-modular architecture from these alternatives, we propose modularity assessment metrics to identify independent interactions between modules and the degrees of similarity within each module. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, a case study is performed with a coffee maker.

The importance of evaluating the environmental design and performance of student projects as a product of architecture departments: A case study

“…Hudson (2005) states that assessment criteria must be based on specific determinants and outputs of education as these will be the reference for teachers and students. In addition, the participation of students in the development of the standards of this system will encourage them to develop their skills and improve their output [38]. Dornisch and Mcloughlin (2006) expressed that this system is credible, effective, and applicable and helps to reduce the problems of product evaluation and creative performance, which will reduce dissatisfaction and satisfaction with evaluation or unfairness [34].…”

A Part Consolidation Design Method for Additive Manufacturing based on Product Disassembly Complexity

“…In order to consider interwoven relationships between parts in a product, Markov Cluster Algorithm (MCL) is applied to group parts with high complexity into a module for AM. The MCL is used to cluster complex biological networks in the field of bioinformatics [40,41]. The MCL is a fast and scalable unsupervised clustering algorithm based on the mathematical concept of random walks.…”

Optimal Product Family Architecture Design and Commonality Decision for Sustainability and Intellectual Property Protection

“…Product architecture can be defined as a "comprehensive representations of a set of characteristics, such as the number and type of components, the number of interfaces between components, and the fundamental structure of the product" [6,7]. The architecture of a product is important not only in the optimal design of individual products but also in the process of determining shared components (or modules) between product variants within a product family [3,8,9].…”

“…Interestingly, their numerical results have shown that such an approach can provide effective decision support for low-carbon and modular manufacturing. Kim and Moon [7] also developed a methodology to identify an "ecomodular" architecture by proposing sustainable modular drivers. However, these studies do not integrate the aspect of IP on sensitive/secured components when defining the appropriate modules.…”

“…The developed methodology is built upon the prior relevant framework and studies focusing independently on sustainable design, design for IP protection, and commonality decisions (see, for example, [3,7,8]). The workflow of the proposed methodol-ogy is shown in Fig.1.…”