Innovation in sustainable manufacturing education

Part of: Seliger, Günther (Ed.): Innovative solutions : proceedings / 11th Global Conference on Sustainable Manufacturing, Berlin, Germany, 23rd - 25th September, 2013. - Berlin: Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin, 2013. - ISBN 978-3-7983-2609-5 (online). - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:83-opus4-40276. - pp. 9-16.Sustainable value creation entails generating value for all stakeholders from economic, environmental and social perspectives. In a manufacturing context, creating sustainable value requires product, process and systems level innovations to enable near-perpetual closed-loop material flow across multiple life-cycles; it also requires understanding the complex interactions of the socio-technical systems with the natural environment for emergent synthesis so sustainable value creation can occur harmoniously and continuously. However, current educational curricula with traditional disciplines is fragmented and do not represent the multidisciplinarity or the integration needs; it is now necessary to work at the interface of the various disciplines to address the complex issues that are brought about through sustainability. Thus, to create sustainable value through sustainable manufacturing will require transformational and innovative reforms in education with an overall paradigm shift to provide the future generation of engineers, scientists and managers the necessary technical knowledge, skills and capabilities. This paper presents recent trends in developing such innovative educational programs in sustainable manufacturing. Also, the technological challenges posed by the need for implementing viable innovative sustainable manufacturing educational programs inevitably require fundamental studies on total life-cycle products, closed-loop manufacturing processes and integrated production systems extending beyond to the entire supply chain operations. This paper is aimed at tackling these significant challenges by essentially developing sustainable value propositions for all forms of educational programs (formal degrees and certificate level programs, professional/continuing education programs, short courses and web-based interactive learning programs, etc.) to incorporate the new knowledge needed to promote value-added sustainable manufacturing at product, process and system levels

Leveraging Insights from Unique Artifacts for Creating Sustainable Products

Sustainablemanufacturingpursuestheachievementofeconomic,environmental, and societal benefits by promoting the long-term use of materials, products, and components within a circular economy. The analysis of one-of-a-kind classical products reveal some designs that exhibit a creative combination of parts from a variety of industrial sectors. For example, Italian designers behind some innovative artifacts have managed to integrate components from different sources into attractive and emotional-oriented objects that are revered to this day. The present work aims to combine 6R-based sustainable manufacturing with insights gained from some classical products of Italian design characterized by simplicity and decontextualization of common objects. This manuscript presents the design process for leveraging concepts embodied in some unique artifacts from the Italian design movement to inspire the realization of sustainable products. A commercial household item was redesigned to demonstrate the application of the approach by utilizing end-of-life items collected from municipal solid waste. The potential benefits of the triple bottom line approach associated with leveraging concepts, such as those from Italian design, to develop more sustainable products is also discussed

A new modelling approach of evaluating preventive and reactive strategies for mitigating supply chain risks

Supply chains are becoming more complex and vulnerable due to globalization and interdependency between different risks. Existing studies have focused on identifying different preventive and reactive strategies for mitigating supply chain risks and advocating the need for adopting specific strategy under a particular situation. However, current research has not addressed the issue of evaluating an optimal mix of preventive and reactive strategies taking into account their relative costs and benefits within the supply network setting of interconnected firms and organizations. We propose a new modelling approach of evaluating different combinations of such strategies using Bayesian belief networks. This technique helps in determining an optimal solution on the basis of maximum improvement in the network expected loss. We have demonstrated our approach through a simulation study and discussed practical and managerial implications

On improving the product sustainability of metallic automotive components by using the total life-cycle approach and the 6R methodology

Part of: Seliger, Günther (Ed.): Innovative solutions : proceedings / 11th Global Conference on Sustainable Manufacturing, Berlin, Germany, 23rd - 25th September, 2013. - Berlin: Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin, 2013. - ISBN 978-3-7983-2609-5 (online). - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:83-opus4-40276. - pp.194-199.This paper presents a novel methodology involving the use of total life-cycle approach, including the Life-cycle Assessment (LCA) method, for improving the product sustainability performance of metallic automotive components. This involves consideration of all four life-cycle stages (pre-manufacturing - PM, manufacturing - M, use - U and post-use - PU), and integration of the 6R activities (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recover, Redesign and Remanufacture). Various end-of-life (EOL) product scenarios - reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling - are modeled and analyzed within the chosen SimaPro LCA software environment. By using the recently established metrics-based Product Sustainability Index (ProdSI) methodology, final aggregated product sustainability scores for different product EOL options are generated. The validated ProdSI results provide options for improving the overall product sustainability by using the new evaluation methodology. This work also shows that a closed-loop material flow, and multiple life-cycles can be achieved through the use of this new methodology

6.1 On improving the product sustainability of metallic automotive components by using the total life-cycle approach and the 6R methodology

Abstract This paper presents a novel methodology involving the use of total life-cycle approach, including the Life-cycle Assessment (LCA) method, for improving the product sustainability performance of metallic automotive components. This involves consideration of all four life-cycle stages (pre-manufacturing -PM, manufacturing -M, use -U and post-use -PU), and integration of the 6R activities (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recover, Redesign and Remanufacture). Various end-of-life (EOL) product scenarios -reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling -are modeled and analyzed within the chosen SimaPro LCA software environment. By using the recently established metrics-based Product Sustainability Index (ProdSI) methodology, final aggregated product sustainability scores for different product EOL options are generated. The validated ProdSI results provide options for improving the overall product sustainability by using the new evaluation methodology. This work also shows that a closed-loop material flow, and multiple life-cycles can be achieved through the use of this new methodology

Selection of product design configuration for improved sustainability using the product sustainability index (prodsi) scoring method

Generating new variants for design elements of products, structuring them into a complete configuration and evaluating the alternate configurations are essential for product design. Evaluating the likely product configurations in terms of sustainability aspects continues to become a useful aspect of interest to product designers. This paper proposes a new approach for applying the Product Sustainability Index (ProdSI) in selecting the best possible configurations for product design. In this paper, the recently developed ProdSI methodology is used to evaluate sustainability performance of a product. The approach is useful for product designers to generate numerous likely product design configurations and subsequently select the most sustainable product design configuration. An example of an armed-chair is used to illustrate the proposed new approach