Дисертації з теми "Product life cycle support"

This research thesis presents the development of a novel Lean Knowledge Life Cycle (LeanKLC) framework to support the transformation into a Lean Product Development (LeanPD) knowledge environment. The LeanKLC framework introduces a baseline model to understand the three dimensions of knowledge management in product development as well as its contextualisation with acclaimed LeanPD process models. The LeanKLC framework comprises 23 tasks, each accomplished in one of the seven key stages, these being: knowledge identification, previous knowledge capture, knowledge representation, knowledge sharing, knowledge integration, knowledge use and provision and dynamic knowledge capture. The rigorous research methodology employed to develop the LeanKLC framework entailed extensive data collection starting with a literature review to highlight the gap in the current body of knowledge. Additionally, industrial field research provides empirical evidence on the current industrial perspectives and challenges in managing product development knowledge. This research was part of a European FP7 project entitled Lean Product and Process Development (LeanPPD), which provided the opportunity to involve industrial collaborators in action research to support practical aspects during the LeanKLC framework development. The synthesis with the current LeanPD paradigm is accomplished by demonstrating the LeanKLC stages in two distinct streams related to the development of A3 thinking for problem solving and the development of trade-off curves to facilitate set based design at the conceptual stage. The novel LeanKLC is validated in two case studies providing the industry with detailed insights on real product development applications. In particular this research highlights that the LeanPD knowledge environment is a wide subject area that has not yet been thoroughly understood and that industry engagement in empirical research is vital in order to realise any form of LeanPD transformation.

Abstract : The use of social media tools to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) to support their business activities throughout the product life cycle (PLC) phases represents an interesting opportunity. SMEs operate in very competitive environments, and face significant challenges primarily caused by their size disadvantage. By nature, social media tools and platforms can enable them to overcome some of these challenges, as they are often very inexpensive, familiar and easy to use, allowing them to reach large audiences they would not be able to reach with traditional and expensive marketing initiatives. To provide solutions to this problem, this research identified three main objectives. The first objective was to draw a picture of the existing academic literature on the use of social media tools in the PLC context to better understand how these tools were studied and used in businesses, and for what purpose. Second, this research aimed at understanding how SMEs actually use social media tools to support their different business activities to identify the gap between academic research and actual business practices. Finally, based on the findings highlighted from the previous objectives, this research aimed at developing theory on this topic by proposing a conceptual framework of customer engagement enabled by social media. The conceptual framework aimed at answering general questions that emerged from the initial two objectives: Why do some SMEs use social media to support customer engagement, while others do not? Why do firms use different social media tools to support their customer engagement initiatives? Why does the scope of customer engagement initiatives (i.e., across different PLC phases) vary between SMEs? What are the potential outcomes of conducting customer engagement initiatives for the organizing firms? In order to achieve these research objectives, the methodology employed for this research is threefold. First, a systematic literature review was performed in order to properly understand how the use of social media tools in the PLC context had been studied. The final results consisted of 78 academic articles which were analyzed based on their bibliometric information and their content. Second, in order to draw the contrast between the academic publications and managerial reality of SMEs, six semi-structured interviews were conducted to understand how these firms actually use social media to support different activities in each of the PLC phases. Third, five additional semi-structured interviews were performed to gather a deeper understanding of this phenomenon and generate theory to support the proposed conceptual framework. The conceptual framework focuses on the degree of customer engagement, which is comprised of the scope (PLC phases) of customer engagement and the technology (social media tools) employed to support these initiatives. Two sets of antecedents were examined, firm motivators and firm impediments, as they could both potentially affect the scope and the social media tools used to support customer engagement initiatives. Finally, potential customer engagement outcomes for SMEs developing these initiatives were also examined. The semi-structured interviews lasted approximately 25-35 minutes, and were performed using an interview grid consisting of 24 open-ended questions. The interview grid was developed based on the findings of the systematic literature review, and this qualitative approach allowed for a rich understanding of the interviewed SMEs’ use of social media tools to support and engage customers in their different PLC activities. The main results highlighted by this project demonstrate that this field is relatively recent and sees constant increase in research interest since 2008. However, most of the academic research focuses on the use of social media tools to support innovation activities during the new product development process, while the interviewed firms almost exclusively used the tools to engage customers in the later phases of the PLC, primarily for promotion, customer service support, and business development activities. Interestingly, the interviewed firms highlighted several benefits of using social media tools to engage customers, some of which could help them overcome certain size disadvantages previously mentioned. These firms are in need of further guidelines to properly implement such initiatives and reap the expected benefits. Results suggest that SMEs are far behind both large companies and academic research in their use of social media to engage customers in different business activities. The proposed conceptual framework serves as a great tool to better understand their reality and eventually better support them in their social media and customer engagement efforts. However, this framework needs to be further developed and improved. This research project provides a 360-degree view of the phenomenon of the use of social media to support customer engagement for SMEs, by providing both a thorough systematic review of the academic research and an understanding of the managerial reality of SMEs behind this phenomenon. From this analysis, a conceptual framework is then proposed and serves as a stepping stone for future researchers who are interested in developing theory in this field.
Résumé : L’utilisation des médias sociaux en support aux activités d’affaires dans chaque phase du cycle de vie des produits et services des petites et moyennes entreprises (PME) représente une excellente opportunité pour les entreprises cherchant à se différencier du marché et se rapprocher de leur clientèle. Les PME œuvrent dans des milieux extrêmement compétitifs et doivent faire face à cette concurrence avec des ressources généralement inférieures aux grandes entreprises qui œuvrent dans la même industrie. L’idée d’identifier comment les technologies peuvent soutenir les PME et réduire l’écart qui les sépare de certains joueurs dans leurs milieux respectifs est apparue comme un sujet pertinent, ayant le potentiel d’amener une contribution académique et managériale. Les médias sociaux ont, par leur nature, le potentiel de permettre aux PME de rejoindre les masses, démontrer de la créativité et ainsi être plus compétitifs que jamais. Les médias sociaux s’avèrent d’autant plus pertinents puisqu’ils sont accessibles à relativement moindre coût, nous sommes familiers avec ces outils et ils sont généralement faciles à utiliser. Ils peuvent ainsi permettre aux entreprises d’accomplir des choses que leurs ressources ne pourraient normalement pas leur permettre. Afin de soutenir les PME dans leurs efforts pour réduire cet écart face aux grandes entreprises, ce projet de recherche identifie trois principaux objectifs. Le premier objectif était de dresser un portrait de la littérature scientifique sur l’utilisation des outils de médias sociaux dans le contexte de cycle de vie des produits afin de mieux comprendre comment ces outils ont été étudiés et utilisés en entreprises. En second lieu, cette étude avait comme but de comprendre comment les PME utilisent les médias sociaux pour supporter leurs différentes activités d’entreprises afin d’identifier l’écart entre la littérature scientifique et la réalité de monde des affaires. Finalement, cette recherche vise à développer de la théorie sur ce sujet en proposant un cadre conceptuel sur l’engagement des consommateurs soutenu par les médias sociaux. Le cadre conceptuel a comme objectif de répondre aux questions qui ont émergé en analysant les réponses aux deux premiers objectifs: pourquoi certaines PME utilisent les médias sociaux pour soutenir l’engagement des consommateurs alors que d’autres ne le font pas? Pourquoi les entreprises utilisent-elles différents outils de médias sociaux pour soutenir leurs initiatives d’engagement des consommateurs? Pourquoi est-ce que la portée (différentes phases du cycle de vie des produits) des initiatives d’engagement des consommateurs varie entre les PME? Quels sont les aboutissements potentiels pour une organisation qui met sur pied une initiative d’engagement des consommateurs? Dans le but de répondre à ces objectifs, la méthodologie employée est constituée de trois étapes distinctes. Premièrement, une revue systématique de la littérature a été exécutée afin de comprendre comment l’utilisation des médias sociaux dans le contexte de cycle de vie des produits a été étudiée. 78 articles ont répondu aux critères d’exclusion et ont été analysés afin de faire ressortir des résultats basés sur leur information bibliométrique et leur contenu. Deuxièmement, afin de délimiter l’écart entre les publications académiques et la réalité des PME, six entrevues semi-structurées ont été menées afin de comprendre comment ces entreprises utilisent les médias sociaux pour supporter différentes activités dans chaque phase du cycle de vie des produits. Troisièmement, cinq entrevues semi-structurées supplémentaires ont été menées afin d’obtenir une compréhension plus en profondeur de ce phénomène et ainsi générer de la théorie pour développer davantage le cadre conceptuel proposé. L'accent du cadre conceptuel est le degré d’engagement des consommateurs, qui comprend la portée (phases du cycle de vie des produits) de l’engagement des consommateurs et les technologies (outils de médias sociaux) utilisées pour soutenir ces initiatives. Deux antécédents ont été examinés, soient les motivateurs et les obstacles aux entreprises, puisqu’ils pourraient tous deux potentiellement affecter la portée et les outils de médias sociaux utilisés en soutient aux initiatives d’engagement des consommateurs. Finalement, les aboutissements potentiels à engager les consommateurs pour les PME qui mettent sur pied ce genre d’initiatives sont également examinés. Les entrevues semi-structurées étaient d’une durée d’environ 25 à 35 minutes. Une grille d’entrevue composée de 24 questions ouvertes a été utilisée afin d’orienter les entrevues et collecter des données. Cette grille a été développée en fonction de l’analyse et des résultats provenant de la revue systématique de la littérature. L’approche qualitative de ces entrevues a permis d’obtenir une compréhension en profondeur de l’utilisation des médias sociaux en support à l’engagement des consommateurs dans diverses activités du cycle de vie des produits des PME. Les principaux résultats de ce projet illustrent que ce domaine d’étude est relativement récent et illustrent une constante croissance dans l’intérêt de recherche pour ce sujet de recherche depuis 2008. Cependant, la plupart des recherches académiques mettent l'accent sur l’utilisation des médias sociaux en support aux activités d’innovation lors des phases du processus de développement de nouveaux produits, alors que les entreprises interviewées utilisent presque exclusivement les médias sociaux pour engager les consommateurs à des fins de promotion, service à la clientèle et développement d’affaires lors des dernières phases du cycle de vie des produits. Il est intéressant de noter que les entreprises interviewées ont identifié plusieurs bénéfices à utiliser les médias sociaux afin de surmonter certains désavantages mentionnés ci-dessus. Ces bénéfices potentiels illustrent l’importance pour ces PME de bénéficier de plus amples directives et recommandations afin d’effectivement implanter ces initiatives et de récolter ces bénéfices potentiels. Nos résultats nous ont permis de comprendre que les PME sont en retard sur les grandes entreprises et le milieu académique dans leur utilisation des médias sociaux pour engager les consommateurs dans diverses activités d’entreprises. Le cadre conceptuel proposé est un excellent outil permettant de mieux comprendre la réalité des PME et éventuellement de mieux les supporter dans leur implantation de divers médias sociaux et leurs efforts pour engager des consommateurs. Cependant, ce cadre conceptuel nécessite davantage de recherches afin de le développer davantage et l’améliorer. Cette recherche se différencie des autres recherches dans ce domaine en fournissant une vue globale de ce phénomène, soit une rigoureuse revue systématique de la littérature académique, ainsi qu’une analyse de la réalité pratique des PME. De cette analyse, un cadre conceptuel est proposé et sert de fondement pour les futurs chercheurs qui souhaitent développer de la théorie reliée à ce domaine d’étude.

Les Systèmes Produit-Service (PSS) résultent d'une intégration de composants hétérogènes couvrant à la fois des aspects matériels et immatériels (mécanique, électrique,logiciel, processus, organisation, etc.). Le processus de développement d’un PSS est fortement collaboratif impliquant des acteurs métier très variés.Ce caractère interdisciplinaire nécessite des référentiels sémantiques standardisés pour gérer la multitude des points de vue métier et faciliter l’intégration de tous les composants hétérogènes dans un système unique. Ceci est encore plus complexe dans le cas des PSS personnalisables, majoritaires dans le milieu industriel. Malgré les nombreuses méthodologies dans littérature, la gestion des processus de développement du PSS reste encore limitée face à cette complexité. Dans ce contexte, l'Ingénierie des systèmes (IS) pourrait être une solution avantageuse au regard de ses qualités bien prouvé pour la modélisation et la gestion de systèmes complexes. Cette thèse vise à explorer le potentiel d'utilisation de l'Ingénierie des systèmes (IS) comme fondement conceptuel pour représenter d’une façon intégrée tous les différents points de vue métier associés au cycle de vie du PSS. Dans ce cadre, un méta-modèle de PSS est proposé et exemplifié dans des cas industriels. Un modèle ontologique est aussi présenté comme une application d’une partie des modèles pour structurer le référentiel commun de la plateforme ICP4Life
Product-service systems (PSS) result from the integration of heterogeneous components covering both tangible and intangible aspects(mechanical, electrical, software, process, organization, etc.). The process of developing PSS is highly collaborative involving a wide variety of stakeholders. This interdisciplinary nature requires standardized semantic repositories to handle the multitude of business views and facilitate the integration of all heterogeneous components into a single system. This is even more complex in the case of customizable PSS in the industrial sector. Despite the many methodologies in literature, the management of the development processes of the PSS is still limited to face this complexity. In this context, Systems Engineering (SE) could bean advantageous solution in terms of its proven qualities for the modeling and management of complex systems. This thesis aims at exploring the potentials of Systems Engineering (SE) as a conceptual foundation to represent various different business perspectives associated with the life cycle of the PSS. In this context, a meta-model for PSS is proposed and verified in industrial cases. An ontological model is also presented as an application of a part of the model to structure the common repository of the ICP4Life platform

As the green movement begins to sweep through the construction industry, decision-makers are beginning to include a sustainable aspect to their purchase decisions. Selecting a product solely based on its sustainability, however, is not enough to drive product selection in the construction industry. Cost still dominates the selection of building products. The level of sustainability of a product and its cost are not interconnected as market prices do not reflect the cost of environmental impacts, such as the cost of global warming or fossil fuel depletion. Having two distinct aspects to consider adds complexity in the product selection process. Typically, it constrains decision-makers to perform a trade-off analysis that does not necessarily guarantee the most environmentally preferable purchase decision. This study proposes a life-cycle management (LCM) system that reinforces the choices made by decision-makers by providing a scientific justification for those decisions. The proposed system analyses the environmental and economic performance of building product through life-cycle analysis and purchase price analysis. It operates on tools publicly available in the market and state-of-the-art analysis, assessment, and interpretation methods. The LCM system combines two distinct product attributes into a single performance score that can be easily interpreted. It allows decision-makers to compare product scores and ultimately make the most environmentally responsible and financially viable selection. A comprehensive approach is used to refine and test the LCM system using case studies comprised of an environmental and economic performance evaluation of flooring products. The contribution of this research includes the consideration of a holistic approach to product selection based on environmental and cost performance. Pre-construction estimators and construction managers could improve their estimating and product selection practices using the proposed system. Material suppliers can also benefit from this approach, as they can use it to enhance their pricing strategies, marketing plans, and overall product competitiveness.

A new economic model for the evaluation of integrated Design, Production, and Logistic Support Systems (DPLSSs) is designed and developed in this thesis. The DPLSS model was created after a survey of Life Cycle Costing (LCC) applications revealed that no models for assessing integrated design, production, and logistic support systems were available. The evaluation technique the model is based on is called Life Cycle Value Assessment (LCVA). LCVA differs from LCC in that it emphasizes consideration of life cycle revenues as well as costs.

The system addressed by the DPLSS model has a life cycle which includes product design, production capability design and construction, production, product distribution, logistic system support and maintenance, and system disposal. The baseline production capability assumed when developing the DPLSS model involves batch processing, forming the base material into individual units, and performing detailed processing operations. It has also been assumed that items produced are non-repairable.

The DPLSS model facilitates the evaluation of new DPLSSs by leading managers through the new LCVA methodology, A Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS) which is compatible with the DPLSS life cycle has been developed as a basis for the model. This CBS is used to address DPLSSs descriptively and nonnatively during LCVA evaluations.

A menu-driven computer program has also been developed to implement the DPLSS model on an IBM PC. This program leads users through the new LCVA-based methodology, performs economic and sensitivity analyses on their inputs, and then allows "what-if?â analyses on varying system configurations to be performed.

Master of Science

Successful competition in the computer systems industry depends on a firm's ability to bring profitable products to market. The success of a product is measured by its future worth to the company. Life-cycle complete design attempts to engineer products that provide maximum future worth. Many components contribute to the overall cost of developing a product. Designing merely to reduce the cost of the components that make up the system is insufficient.

A product must be engineered in a manner that addresses all pertinent issues over its complete life cycle. This research examines the use of the VHSIC Hardware Description Language as a computer-aided engineering tool for life-cycle complete engineering. VHDL is traditionally used to model the functional behavior of digital systems. This thesis provides an overview of a life-cycle complete design process and describes the use of VHDL to support that process. A case study is presented to illustrate the use of VHDL for life-cycle complete modeling.
Master of Science

The huge landfills from solid waste generated by the massive utilisation of different products from domestic sources are badly affecting the environment. About 70% of the solid municipal waste, two thirds of which comprises of household waste, is dumped as landflll all over the world. For efficient product lifecycle management via upgrade, maintenance, reuse, refurbishment, and reclamation of components etc., storage of product related information throughout its lifecycle is indispensable. Efficient use of information technology integrated with product design can enable products to manage themselves in a semiautomatic and intelligent manner. It means that products themselves should contain informationú that what to do with them when they are of no use. More advanced products may locate themselves and communicate with their recyclers through internet or some other communication technology. In this regard, different types of technologies have been investigated. These technologies are broadly classified as passive embedded information devices and active embedded information devices. Methods of automatic identification in combination with information technology can act as passive Embedded Information Devices (EID) to make products intelligent enough in order to manage associated information throughout their life cycles. Barcodes, Radio Frequency Identification tags, and a new technology called i-button technology were investigated as possible candidates for passive EIDs. The ibutton technology from the perspective of product lifecycle management is presented for the very first time in the literature. Experiments demonstrated that RFID and i-button technologies have potential to store not only the static but dynamic data up to some extent, such as small maintenance logs. As passive EIDs are unable to store the sensory data and detailed maintenance logs regarding a product, therefore, in addition to these demonstrators for passive EIDs, an advanced active EID demonstrator for lifecycle management of products with high functional complexity is also presented. Initially, the idea is presented as smart EID system that r~cords the sensory data of a refrigerator compressor and stores the detailed maintenance logs into the product itself. However, this idea is extended as intelligent EID that is implemented on a gearbox in order to predict the gearbox lifetime under an accelerated life test. This involves developmen,t of a novel on-chip life prediction algorithm to predict the gearbox lifetime under accelerated life testing scenario. The algorithm involves a combination of artificial neural networks and an appropriate reliability distribution. Results of accelerated life testing, simulation for the choice of appropriate reliability distribution and the life prediction algorithm are presented. Bi-directional communication software that is developed in order to retrieve lifecycle data from the intelligent EID and to keep intelligent EID updated is also explained. Overall, embedded information devices can be proposed as a good solution to support a sustainable approach to lifecycle management.

The military community has considerable experience in the areas of procuring and managing large systems. These systems are often expected to perform their intended function over a period of several years and as a result, they will require an extensive support structure consisting of personnel, equipment and spare assets. For this reason, Logistics Management has always been an important field within the military and is gaining recognition within private industry as well. The evolutionary process which starts with the identification of a need and continues through design, production and retirement is known as a product's life cycle. Studies have shown that the decisions which are made initially, during the design of the product, will determine 80% of the total system costs. Several efforts have been initiated to improve the product design process and emphasize the life cycle approach. These include; Concurrent Engineering, Logistics Support Analysis (LSA) and Quality Function Deployment (QFD). These efforts necessitate an overhaul of the decision-making methods used in the product design process. Consequently, within the military community and private industry, the time-honored sequential-hierarchical-decision approach to design is being replaced with concurrent decision-making. The sequential process of the hierarchical method can lead to suboptimal designs which significantly increase manufacturing and follow-on support costs.
Ph. D.

In order to stay competitive in today’s overly competitive market place, businesses must be engineered to match product characteristics and customer requirements. This increased emphasis on achieving highly adaptive manufacturing with reduction in manufacturing costs, better utilization of manufacturing resources and sound environmental management practices force organisations to adopt efficient management practices in their manufacturing operations. Some of the established practices in this context belong to the Lean, Agility and Green (LAG) paradigms. Adopting these practices in order to address customer requirements may require some level of expertise and understanding of the contribution (or lack of it) of the practices in meeting those requirements. Primarily, the wide choice of LAG practices available to address customer requirements can be confusing and/or challenging for those with limited knowledge of LAG practices and their efficacy. There is currently no systematic methodology available for selecting appropriate LAG practices considering of the product life cycle (PLC). Therefore, this research provides a novel framework for selecting appropriate LAG practices based on PLC stages for reducing costs, lead time and generated waste. The methodology describes the application of analytic hierarchy process (AHP), statistical inference and regression analysis as decision support tools, ensuring a systematic approach to the analysis with appropriate performance measures. The data collected were analysed with the aid of SPSS and Excel using a variety of statistical methods. The framework was verified through a Delphi study and validated using a case study. The key findings of the research include the various contributions of lean, agile and green practices towards improving performance measures, the importance of green in improving performance measures and the importance of selecting appropriate practices based on product life cycle stages. This research makes a clear contribution to existing body of knowledge by providing a methodological framework which could serve as a guide for companies in the FMCG industry to systematically integrate and adopt lean, agile and green to better manage their processes and meet customer requirements in their organisations. However, the framework developed in this research has not been tested in other areas.

In this research, a decision support model for coordinating sustainable product and supply chain design decisions is developed using a multi-stage hierarchical approach. The model evaluates alternate product designs and their corresponding supply chain configurations to identify the best product design and the corresponding supply chain configuration that maximizes the economic, environmental and societal benefits. The model considers a total life-cycle approach and incorporates closed-loop flow among multiple product lifecycles. In the first stage, a mixed integer linear programming model is developed to select for each product design an optimal supply chain configuration that maximizes the profit. In the subsequent stages, the economic, environmental and societal multiple life-cycle analysis models are developed which assess the economic, environment and the societal performance of each product design and its optimal supply chain configuration to identify the best product design with highest sustainability benefits. The decision support model is applied for an example problem to illustrate the procedure for identifying the best sustainable design. Later, the model is applied for a real-time refrigerator case to identify the best refrigerator design that maximizes economic, environmental and societal benefits. Further, sensitivity analysis is performed on the optimization model to study the closed-loop supply chain behavior under various situations. The results indicated that both product and supply chain design criteria significantly influence the performance of the supply chain. The results provided insights into closed-loop supply chain models and their behavior under various situations. Decision support models such as above can help a company identify the best designs that bring highest sustainability benefits, can provide a manager with holistic view and the impact of their design decisions on the supply chain performance and also provide areas for improvement.

This thesis reports on the research undertaken to minimise energy consumption within the production phase of a product lifecycle through modelling, monitoring and improved control of energy use within manufacturing facilities. The principle objective of this research is to develop a framework which integrates energy data at plant and process levels within a manufacturing system so as to establish how much energy is required to manufacture a unit product. The research contributions are divided into four major parts. The first reviews relevant literature in energy trends, related governmental policies, and energy tools and software. The second introduces an Embodied Product Energy framework which categorises energy consumption within a production facility into direct and indirect energy required to manufacture a product. The third describes the design and implementation of a simulation model based on this framework to support manufacturing and design decisions for improved energy efficiency through the use of what-if scenario planning. The final part outlines the utilisation of this energy simulation model to support a Design for Energy Minimisation methodology which incorporates energy considerations within the design process. The applicability of the research concepts have been demonstrated via two case studies. The detailed analysis of energy consumption from a product viewpoint provides greater insight into inefficiencies of processes and associated supporting activities, thereby highlighting opportunities for optimisation of energy consumption via operational or design improvements. Although the research domain for this thesis is limited to the production phase, the flexibility offered by the energy modelling framework and associated simulation tool allow for their employment other product lifecycle phases. In summary, the research has concluded that investment in green sources of power generation alone is insufficient to deal with the rapid rise in energy demand, and has highlighted the paramount importance of energy rationalisation and optimisation within the manufacturing industry.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008.
Committee Chair: Bras, Bert; Committee Member: Allen, Janet; Committee Member: Chameau, Jean-Lou; Committee Member: McGinnis, Leon; Committee Member: Paredis, Chris.

Increasing awareness of anthropogenic impacts on the planet has lead to efforts to reduce negative environmental impacts in product development for several decades. Benefits to companies who focus on sustainability initiatives have been put forth more recently, leading to many efforts to incorporate sustainability considerations in their product innovation processes. The majority of current sustainability considerations in industry constrain design space by emphasizing reduced material and energy flows across the product’s life cycle. However, there is also an opportunity to use awareness of sustainability to bring attention to new facets of design space and to drive innovation. Specifically there is an opportunity for product-service systems (PSS) to be a vehicle through which sustainability-driven innovation occurs. A framework for strategic sustainable development (FSSD) provides the basis for understanding sustainability in this work, and provides clarity with regard to how to think about sustainable products and service innovations. The “backcasting” approach included in this framework also provides insight into how incremental and radical approaches could be aligned within the product innovation working environment. This thesis explores how sustainability considerations can be better integrated into existing product innovation working environments in order to drive innovation processes within firms, with a specific emphasis on opportunities that occur as sustainability knowledge leads to innovation through a product-service system approach. It endeavors to contribute to both theory development within the emerging sustainable PSS design research area, and also to advance the state of practice within industry by connecting dots between the state of theory and the state of practice. Society’s opportunity to become more sustainable and industry’s desire for innovation in order to lead to or increase profitability are often in conflict. However, this thesis argues that knowledge of global social and ecological sustainability can be used to drive innovation processes, and that there are win-win opportunities that can often be achieved through a PSS approach. There is some, but not sufficient, support for the inclusion of sustainability considerations in the product innovation process, and even fewer tools to support the use of sustainability to drive innovation. In response, an approach to providing support that brings together the FSSD and various approaches to systems modeling and simulation is presented. Opportunities to use sustainability-friendly attributes of existing products through a PSS-approach are also presented.

Abstract The objective of this thesis is to demonstrate a design to profit procedure and its implementation in industrial case environment. The procedure is demonstrated as a way to improve profits in a global company. The essential elements of the procedure are product business case calculations and profit consciousness of employees. This study utilizes a combination of product life cycle analysis, advanced costing methods and multidimensional data processing for the product business case calculations. The combination is necessary for solving the research task. The need of proactive design is emphasized in the telecommunications industry due to shorter and shorter product life cycles. However, traditional accounting methods do not support proactive design work sufficiently during the life cycle of the products. The design to profit procedure has been created to help business managers to solve following problems: 1. How to proactively ensure the growth of business profits in the future? 2. How to prevent suboptimal decisions from being made in functional units and to promote overall profitability? 3. How to judge the profitability of new product programs within a company? 4. How can we ensure an adequate level of cost consciousness and profitability-driven targets for the company's key employees? This study presents and discusses the construction of the procedure and describes its elements, implementation and use in practice. The argumentation is illustrated by case studies. This method has benefits, especially when the product life cycles are short and the market competition strong. The design to profit procedure is a proactive mind set or thinking pattern. This system makes the employees aware of the importance target profitability and especially target costing. There is no decision support system that could guarantee the profitability of business. Cautious utilization of the system results and common sense are required to achieve continuous growth of business profits.

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2000.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-77).
Market leadership requires effective management of product life cycle, starting from the launch of a new product until its retirement. In this particular project, an exploratory study of business practices in the management of products in the decline phase and the eventual decision of product abandonment is conducted through surveys and interviews of senior executives from Fortune 500 companies, focusing mainly on food, networking equipment, medical devices, consumer electronics and retail industries. Actual names of the companies are not revealed for confidentiality reasons. Also, the implementations, assumptions and level of acceptance of decision support system (DSS) modules on product lifecycle management are analyzed. Finally, companies' business processes are compared and enhancements to current DSS systems are proposed.
by Gokhan Usanmaz.
M.Eng.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool specifically developed for quantifying and assessing the environmental burden of a product across its entire life cycle, thus providing powerful support for sustainable product design. There exists a geographical imbalance in the adoption and distribution of LCA studies, with a notably poor penetration into developing countries, resulting from a lack of technical expertise, reliable data, and an inability to engage with the key issues of developing countries. These challenges are particularly prevalent in waste management. The limitations in current LCA capacity for representing product end-of-life, coupled to the disparity in waste management practices between developed and developing countries means that LCA is currently unable to accurately model product end-of-life in South Africa. This means that, for imported products designed on the basis of LCA, the upstream impacts may be accurate, while the end-of-life is not. Therefore, to improve the use of LCA as a tool to support sustainable product design, there is a need to develop life cycle datasets and methods that accurately reflect the realities of waste management in developing countries. The objectives of this dissertation are to (i) identify the current shortcomings of existing LCA datasets in representing the end-of-life stage of general waste in a South African context, and (ii) propose modifications to existing datasets to better reflect the realities of waste management in a South African context and extract lessons from this for use elsewhere. To meet these objectives, research was undertaken in three main stages, with the outcome of each stage used to inform the development of each subsequent stage. The first stage aimed to establish the status quo with regards to general waste management in South Africa. This investigation was informed through a desktop review of government and other publicly available reports, supplemented by field work and stakeholder engagements. These results formed the basis for the second stage: a review of LCA capacity for representing product end-of-life in the South African context. The review of datasets was limited to those contained within SimaPro v8.3 and was undertaken with the aim of understanding the extent to which current datasets are capable of representing South African waste management practices. Finally, three cases of existing LCA datasets were explored. This included testing modifications that could be made in an attempt to improve their applicability to the South African reality. In South Africa, a major limitation in developing a quantified mapping of waste flows lies in the paucity of reliable waste data and the exclusion of the contribution of the informal sector in existing waste data repositories. It was estimated that South Africa generates approximately 12.7 million tonnes of domestic waste per annum, of which an estimated 29% is not collected or treated via formal management options. For both formal and informal general waste, disposal to land (landfill and dumping) represents the most utilised waste management option. Landfill conditions in South Africa range from well-managed sanitary landfills to open dumps. Considering only licensed landfill facilities, it is estimated that large and medium landfill sites accept the majority of South Africa’s general waste (54% and 31% respectively), while the balance is managed in small (12%) and communal (3%) sites. Considering the quantity of informal domestic waste enables a crude estimation of household waste distribution between different landfill classes. In this instance, while the majority of waste (40%) is still managed in large formal landfill sites, an appreciable quantity (26%) is managed in private dumps. Within SimaPro v8.3 landfill disposal is best represented by the sanitary landfill datasets contained within the ecoinvent v3.3 database. SimaPro preserves the modular construction of the ecoinvent dataset, meaning that various generic modifications to these datasets can be made, such as the elimination or addition of burdens, redefinition of the value of a burden, or substitution of a linked dataset. Practically, such modifications are limited to process-specific burdens. However, wastespecific burdens are of greater significance in the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) result of a landfill process. Waste-specific emissions are generated using the underlying ecoinvent landfill emission model. The current model structure allows for the parametrisation of waste composition in addition to landfill gas (LFG) capture and utilisation efficiencies. However, besides the incorporation of a methane correction factor to account for the effect that various site conditions have on the waste degradation environment, the extent to which the existing model can be adapted to represent alternative landfill conditions is limited. This is particularly true in the case of leachate generation and release. Although adaptation that incorporates the effect of climatic conditions on waste degradability and emission release is possible, this requires a high level of country-specific data and modelling expertise. Thus, the practicality of such a modification within the skills set of most LCA practitioners is questionable. Further limitations in the existing modelling framework include its inability to quantify the potential impacts of practices characteristic of unmanaged sites such as open-burning, waste scavenging, and the presence of vermin and other animal vectors for disease. Analysis of the LCIA results for different landfill scenarios showed that regardless of either the deposited material or the specific landfill conditions modelled, the time frame considered had the most pronounced effect on the normalised potential impacts. Regardless of landfill conditions, when long-term leachate emissions are considered, freshwater and marine ecotoxicity impacts dominate the overall potential impacts of the site. This result implies that if landfill disposal is modelled over the long-term, the potential impacts of the process has less to do with site-specific conditions than it does to do with the intrinsic properties of the material itself. Given the ensuing extent of degradation that occurs over the time frame considered, the practise of very long-term modelling can equalise landfills that differ strongly in the short-term. In terms of product design on the basis of LCA, the choice of material can be more strongly influenced by the time frame considered than the specific landfill scenario. From a short-term perspective, for fast degrading materials the impacts incurred from leachate emissions and their subsequent treatment are of lesser importance than those arising from LFG. From a long-term perspective by contrast, leachate emissions have a significant effect on the LCIA result. Investigation into the effect of reduced precipitation on the LCIA result showed that the exclusion of leachate emissions lowers the potential impacts of a number of impact categories, with the most substantial quantified reduction observed in the freshwater and marine ecotoxicity impact categories. This result implies that for dry climates, the long-term impacts of landfilling could be significantly lower than when compared to landfill under temperate conditions, with the potential impacts of the waste remaining locked-up in the landfill. Given quantified findings on South Africa’s dependence on both formal and informal disposal, and the variation in landfill conditions across the country, it can be concluded that LCA results for the impacts of products originating from global supply chains, but consumed and disposed of in South Africa, will be inaccurate for the end-of-life stage if modifications to end-of-life modelling are not made. The findings from this dissertation provide the basis for i) a crude estimate of ‘market shares’ of different disposal practises and ii) guidelines for parameterisation of material specific emission factors, in particular for shorter term emissions, focused on LFG and leachate emissions.

Notre travail de recherche traite la problématique de la conception d’une chaîne logistique multi-niveaux tout en tenant compte du cycle de vie du produit. Par cycle de vie du produit, nous voulons dire la succession des quatre phases de commercialisation que traverse un produit à travers le temps, à savoir : l’introduction, la croissance, la maturité et le déclin. L’objectif est de mette en place un modèle mathématique qui soit fondé sur une analyse approfondie des différents acteurs de la chaîne, selon la phase du cycle de vie du produit.Trois principaux modèles ont été développés dans cette thèse. Chacun fait l’objet d’un chapitre à part entière.Le premier modèle développé vise à concevoir une chaîne logistique de coût minimum, tout en prenant en considération l’efficacité des différents acteurs potentiels calculée selon plusieurs critères (coût, qualité, innovation, qualité du service, délais de livraisons, …), ainsi que sa variation au cours du cycle de vie du produit. Un deuxième modèle a été mis en place pour la conception d’une chaîne logistique durable, tout en prenant en considération le cycle de vie du produit. Dans ce modèle, trois objectifs différents ont été pris en compte à la fois, à savoir, un objectif économique, un objectif environnemental et un objectif social. Dans les deux premiers modèles, nous avons supposé que le produit aura un cycle de vie classique. Cependant, dans la réalité, ceci n’est pas toujours le cas. En effet, quelques produits connaissent des cycles de vie très atypiques et donc très éloignés de la courbe d’un cycle de vie théorique. Pour ce faire, un troisième modèle stochastique a été proposé pour la conception d’une chaîne logistique robuste, tenant compte des différents scénarios du cycle de vie du produit
Our research addresses the problem of designing a multi-level supply chain, while taking into consideration the product life cycle. By product life cycle, we mean the succession of the four marketing stages that a product goes through since its introduction to the market and until it will be removed from. All products have a life cycle which can be classified into four discrete stages: introduction, growth, maturity and decline.Depending on the product life cycle phases, and based on a thorough analysis of the different supply chain potential actors, this study aims to establish mathematical models to design an efficient supply chain network. Three main models have been developed in this thesis. The first proposed model aims to design a product-driven supply chain with a minimal total cost, taking into consideration the evaluation of the different potential actors effectiveness, according to several criteria (cost, quality, innovation, quality service, timely delivery, ...).A second model was developed to design of a sustainable supply chain network, taking into account the product life cycle. In this model, three different objectives at the time were considered, namely, an economic objective, an environmental objective and a social objective.In the two previous models, we have assumed that the product has a classical life cycle. However, in the reality this is not always the case. Indeed, some products have very atypical life cycles, whose curves are very different from the classical one. To tackle this problem, in the third part of this thesis, we propose a stochastic model to design a robust supply chain network, taking into account the different product life cycle scenarios

Decision makers are challenged by complex sustainability problems within the socio-ecological system. In response, a vast range of sustainability-related methods/tools have been developed, each focusing on certain aspects of this challenge. Without a unifying theory it is, however, unclear how these methods/tools can support strategic progress towards sustainability and how they relate to each other. This need for clarity and structure urged some sustainability pioneers to start develop an overarching framework for strategic sustainable development (SSD), often called “The Natural Step (TNS) framework”, from the NGO that has facilitated its development and application, or the “backcasting from sustainability principles (BSP) framework” from its main operational philosophy. The aim of this thesis is to study if, and in that case how, this framework can aid coordination and further development of various sustainability-related methods/tools, specifically to increase their capacity to support sustainable product development (SPD). Life-cycle assessment (LCA), “templates” for SPD and systems modeling and simulation (SMS) are the methods/tools in focus. A new strategic life-cycle management approach is presented, in which the main sustainability aspects, LCA “impacts”, are identified through socioecological sustainability principles. This creates new opportunities to avoid the reductionism that often follows from traditional system boundaries or from a focus on specific impacts. Ideas of how this approach can inform the studied tools are given. This may eventually lead to a whole integrated toolbox for SPD (a “Design Space”). As part of such a Design Space, a new “template” approach for SPD is developed. A case study of a sustainability assessment of TVs at the Matsushita Electric Group indicates that this approach can create a quick overview of critical sustainability aspects in the early part of the product development process and facilitate communication of this overview between top management, product developers, and other stakeholders. A potential integration between BSP and SMS is also discussed. It is suggested that this should start with BSP to create lists of critical presentday flows and practices, ideas of long term solutions and visions, and a first rough idea about prioritized early investments. After that, SMS should be applied to study the interrelationships between the listed items, in order to create more robust and refined analyses of the problems at hand, possible solutions and investment paths, while constantly coupling back to the sustainability principles and guidelines of the BSP framework. v Decision makers seem to need more of an overview and of simplicity around sustainability issues. A general conclusion is, however, that it is important that this is achieved without a loss of relevant aspects and their interrelations. Over-simplifications might lead to sub-optimized designs and investments paths. Combining the BSP framework with more detailed methods/tools seems to be a promising approach to finding the right balance and to get synergies between various methods/tools.

There is growing interest in the assessment of products from a life cycle perspective. Product life cycles are often dominated by extensive chemical supply chains that lead up to the materials contained in the products and the overwhelming contribution that the production of these chemicals make to the overall life cycle due to their energy intensity. Hence, chemical engineers are uniquely positioned to carry out significant components of this assessment because of their skills in chemical process design and analysis. Furthermore, the complexity and extent of life cycle concerns creates opportunities for new process systems tools to be developed to support product design and analysis. The specific thesis objectives are threefold. The first is to develop a systematic methodology to optimize material selections for a product based on life cycle inventory (LCI) characteristics. The second is to use this methodology combined with sustainability assessment standards to assess whether these standards are congruent with life cycle assessment. The third is to develop an approach to design product sustainability assessment standards that are clear and consistent with life cycle principles. The overall contributions will be in the applied domain of life cycle assessment and its integration into standards setting, and in contributions to optimization tools and methods. The three objectives will be illustrated in the domain of carpet systems. Previous research has generated a substantial database of gate-to-gate (GTG) life cycle inventories for various chemicals that make up carpet, extending from the inputs to the final carpet mill back to the natural resources such as oil, natural gas and mined calcium carbonate. Carpet recycling is a promising alternative approach for reducing life cycle impacts and is being practiced at a growing scale in the U.S. This thesis uses the specific individual LCI gate-to-gate blocks for virgin materials and for important carpet recycling and general polymer recycling processes. A database for the GTG LCI will be used to construct a virtual chemical tree that automatically that represents the potential cradle-to-gate (CTG) use of resources. The alternatives for each possible route for the product will be generated, and optimization approaches will be applied to optimize the performance of the carpet system according to life cycle objectives. Sustainability assessment standards are currently being developed for a range of building products, such as carpet, resilient flooring, commercial textile coverings and office furniture. This activity has been stimulated through the considerable success of the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) LEED standard. The LEED Standard is points-based: the building design and construction earns points for having certain attributes or promoting certain activities. The points are totaled and then the building earns a rating based on the total being above a certain threshold. The second thesis objective is met through extending the LCI optimization methodology to represent point-based standards. A product can then be optimized to maximize the number of points it earns or to minimize its life cycle attributes. This approach can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of an emerging carpet sustainability standard, NSF-140, in integrating LCI into the standard. The last objective, standard design, is approached through designing the tables that award points in the standard to be consistent with life cycle information. Certain minimum principles of consistency are articulated and then the designs shown to be consistent with these principles in the case that the life cycle impact assessment method maps the life cycle inventory to impact through a linear weighting.

Wood poles are the most common support structures for distribution lines in North America. Wood poles typically have a service life of 40-50 years but may be replaced prematurely when they fail or are damaged by climatic loads or when they have degraded prematurely. The distribution network of Hydro-Quebec comprises more than 2 million wood poles and the selection of an optimal class of poles for new or refurbished lines can potentially represent significant savings. In this project, wood poles from class 1 to 5 and steel poles are considered for new or refurbished lines using life-cycle-cost analysis.
The evaluation of life-cycle-costs of a line for a service life of 50 years was performed in two steps. A reliability model was first developed to estimate the probability of failure of single poles with climatic loads. The results of the reliability analysis were then integrated in an economic model that computes the Net Present Value of construction costs and pole replacement costs associated with failure under climatic loads of the whole line. Maintenance costs were neglected in this study since they were determined to be approximately similar for the various classes of poles.
The results indicate that the Class 4 poles that are currently used for the distribution network are not optimal from an economic point of view. For distribution lines located in regions with moderate ice hazard expositions, a Class 2 pole has a 15% cost advantage over the Class 4 poles. For distribution lines located in regions with severe ice hazard expositions, a Class 2 pole has a 30% advantage over the Class 4 poles.

Given the context of globalization and growing competition, we assist at a reduction of the product life cycle and at a rapid diffusion of creations and innovations. To respond to the fast changing customers’ demand and to reinforce their market position, firms shall design an effective creative process offering superior customer value and insuring their future in the long term.

First of all, after an explanation of the differences between creativity and innovation, the creative process of high-tech firms in terms of actors involved, resources allocation, leadership and management of creative people will be depicted. Secondly, the creative destruction process and some of the inherent obstacles and risks of the creative process will be addressed. Thirdly, the concepts of Technology Life Cycle (TLC) and Product Life Cycle (PLC) will be developed.

Within this thesis, our ideas are presented and justified through three methodologies: Literature Review, case study and interview. We mainly used the cases of Hewlett-Packard (HP) and France Telecom Orange (FTO) to backup our argumentation.

We conceptualized the creative process and we highlighted the connections between the creative process and the Product Life Cycle. With the help of two other small cases study (Nintendo and Apple), we emphasized the downward trend of high-tech products’ lifecycle in the long run. Ultimately, four practical recommendations are given to leaders from high-tech industries and directions to deeper research this topic are advised.

Many specific methods and tools have been developed to deal with sustainability problems. However, without a unifying theory it is unclear how these relate to each other and how they can be used strategically. A Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD) is being developed to cover this need for clarity and structure. It includes backcasting from a principled definition of sustainability as a key feature. The aim of this thesis is to study how this framework can guide the use and improvement of detailed methods and tools, in particular to support sustainable product innovation (SPI). First, a new strategic life-cycle management approach is presented, in which the selection of aspects to be considered are not based on typical down-stream impact categories, but on identified major violations of sustainability principles. Ideas of how this approach can inform various specific methods and tools are also presented, as a basis for an integrated “toolbox” for SPI. As part of such, a new “template” approach for sustainable product development (TSPD) is developed through a sustainability assessment case study of TVs. That study indicates that this approach can create a quick and strategically relevant overview of critical sustainability aspects of a product, as well as facilitate communication between top management, product developers and external stakeholders. Based on such an assessment, it is sometimes necessary to go deeper into details, including the use of specific engineering methods and tools. To facilitate a coordinated assessment of sustainability aspects and technical aspects, an introductory procedure for sustainability-driven design optimization is suggested trough a water jet cutting case study. Equally important, to get a breakthrough for SPI, it is essential to integrate sustainability aspects into the overall decision-making process at different levels in companies. An approach to assessing sustainability integration in strategic decision systems is therefore also developed through a case study involving several companies. Finally, the integration between the FSSD and general systems modeling and simulation (SMS) is discussed and tested in another water jet cutting case study. It is shown feasible to start with the FSSD to create lists of critical flows and practices, ideas of long term solutions and visions, and a first rough idea about prioritized early investments. After that, SMS can be applied to study the interrelationships between the listed items, in order to create more robust and refined analyses of the problems at hand, possible solutions and investment paths, while constantly coupling back to the sustainability principles and guidelines of the FSSD. This research shows that the combination of the FSSD with detailed methods and tools cohesively provides decision-makers with both a robust overview and, when needed, a more coordinated and effective detailed support. To utilize its full potential, this approach should now be integrated into decision processes, software and manuals for SPI.

Thesis (Ph. D. in Environmental Systems Design)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology, Management, and Policy Program, 2002.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 143-150).
This thesis develops an approximate, analytically based environmental assessment method that provides fast evaluations of product concepts. Traditional life-cycle assessment (LCA) studies and their streamlined analytical versions are costly, time-consuming, and data intensive. Thus, they are not practical to apply during early concept design phases where little information is available and ideas change quickly. Alternatives currently used are mostly qualitative, ad-hoc approaches that often provide overly simplistic assessments difficult to trade-off with other design objectives. The Learning Surrogate LCA method is an alternative approach that uses simple, high-level, and accessible descriptive information about a product to provide approximate, yet useful, analytical LCA results during early concept design stages. The method relies on a general artificial neural network (ANN) trained on high-level product descriptors and environmental performance data from pre-existing detailed life-cycle assessment studies or related data. To quickly obtain an approximate environmental impact assessment for a product concept, the design team queries the trained artificial model with new set of descriptors, without requiring the development of a new model. The predicted environmental performance, along with other key performance measures, can be used in tradeoff analysis and concept selection. Foundations for the approach were established by investigating: (1) model inputs in the form of a compact, and meaningful set of product concept descriptors; (2) ability to gather data and appropriately train an ANN-based surrogate LCA model.
(cont.) Proof-of-concept tests on life-cycle energy consumption showed that ANN-based surrogate models were able to: (a) match detailed LCA results within the accuracy of typical LCA studies; (b) predict relative differences of distinct product concepts; (c) correctly predict and generalize trends associated with changes for a given product concept. A product classification system based upon concept descriptors was developed to improve performance. The method was then applied to a case study with a heavy truck manufacturing company. A demonstration example was used to illustrate application scenarios for tradeoff analysis within DOME (Distributed Object-based Modeling Environment). The study suggested that high-level, customizable simulation interfaces of learning surrogate LCA models are likely to have a significant practical impact in the early decision making process.
by Inês Sousa.
Ph.D.in Environmental Systems Design

Promoting sustainable products and resource efficiency have become two major policy objectives in Europe, and resource efficiency has become an important political objective on the agenda of the European Commission. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) acts as an efficient framework to evaluate product environmental performances and improve resource efficiency. An integrated approach implemented by three ICT systems are developed to support sustainable production. A sustainable production support toolbox has been developed that contains state-of-art tools regarding LCA software and database tools, environmental management schemes, the EU regulations and directives and stands associated with sustainable production. The applicable requirements, scope and advantages have been examined to develop the tools selection considerations. Compared with the existing toolbox, the distinguished novelty of the developed toolbox is that it can integrate into the product development process, the feasibility and utility of which has been demonstrated by reporting a sustainable flooring product development process. A framework for converting the existing ecoinvent database into a SQL supported database has also been developed, in order to use the ecoinvent database to serve web applications. The data format (i.e. EcoSpold) of the ecoinvent database is a custom XML format, and Python XML processing library has been applied to employ SAX approach to extract the massive data values and information from the EcoSpold files. The demonstrated framework iii and adopted approaches successfully convert the ecoinvent database into a SQL database management tool. Moreover, a Java GUI application has been developed to invoke the SQL based LCI database and the aggregated LCI datasets from the web-based product environmental assessment system. A web-based product environmental performance assessment system has been developed to achieve powerful, flexible and efficient online LCA calculations, by converting a desktop LCA software and applying a High-Performance Calculation Library. Moreover, a mobile client application has been developed to help consumers to evaluate purchased products sustainability performance and implement sustainable consumption. This developed tool is a novel web system that can perform powerful web and mobile based LCA calculations. The performance of the web system has been examined by applying a LCA on the shampoo product. A dedicated LCA on shampoo product has been conducted by using the SimaPro. The LCI datasets are provided by its manufacturer, a UK based company, and also fulfilled by applying ecoinvent database. This case study presents an in-depth modelling and analysis on shampoo product lifecycle with the aid of real manufacturing data. The analytical results also show that the lifecycle stage of major environmental impacts is in the shampoo utilisation stages.

Companies are under increasing pressure to deal with environmental concerns during product design, for it is the design process which primarily decides the environmental impact of a manufactured product over its life. Tools which assist in taking a life cycle view of the product are a necessary support to designers. Prime amongst these tools is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). However, a major criticism of LCA methodologies is that while they provide advice on environmentally superior product designs, they do not provide guidance on the economic impact. With product take back increasingly likely to become the responsibility of producer companies attention is now being paid to the later phases of a products life, such as maintenance and disposal costs. A new methodology is shown to be required to complement LCA, one which considers the economic implications of environmentally superior designs over the whole product life. It is argued that a major challenge of such a methodology will be how it deals with the uncertainty associated with the future. The research provides a review of product life cycle design methodologies and a critique of existing approaches to uncertainty. A design teams requirements for decision support that deals with product economic life cycle uncertainty is presented and a decision support methodology which meets these requirements is described. The methodology builds upon the theory of life cycle costing. In practice, the methodology integrates a computer based life cycle model with statistical techniques to quantify the contribution of life cycle variables. In bringing these proven but previously separate tools together the method resolves the issue of uncertainty in a novel and acceptable way. Through the use of an in-depth industrial case study, it is shown that the methodology provides practical support to the design team to produce economically superior product life cycle designs.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2006.
Title from title screen (viewed on Oct. 5, 2006) "Submitted to Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Engineering Management in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in enterprise technology and management." Includes bibliographical references.