PRODUCT DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING PROCESSES FOR SUSTAINABILITY
1.3 Significance of Sustainable Product Design and Manufacture
Figure2shows the exponential increase in shareholder value when theinnovation-based sus- tainabilityconcepts are implemented against the traditional cost-cutting, substitution-based growth.29The business benefits of sustainability are built on the basis of 3Rs: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. A market-driven “logic of sustainability” is now emerging based on the grow- ing expectations of stakeholders on performance. A compelling case for market transformation from short-term profit focus to innovation-based stakeholder management methods has been proposed in a well-documented book by Chris Laszlo.30This covers five major logics of sus- tainability:
1. Scientific (e.g., human-induced global climate change)
2. Regulatory (e.g., Title I of the Clean Air Act, amended in the United States in 1990) 3. Political (e.g., agenda of the green parties in Europe)
4. Moral, based on values and principles
5. Market, focusing on the shareholder value implications of stakeholder value.
The global challenge of sustainability may be restated as follows: Address the needs of a growing, developing global population without depleting our natural resources and with- out ruining the environment with our wastes. Fundamental knowledge must be developed and new innovative technologies established to meet this need. Engineers must move beyond their traditional considerations of functionality, cost, performance, and time to market to consider also sustainability. Engineers must begin thinking in terms of minimizing energy consumption, waste-free manufacturing processes, reduced material utilization, and resource recovery fol- lowing the end of product use—all under the umbrella of a total life-cycle view. Of course, all this must be done with involvement of stakeholders and the development of innovative tech- nologies, tools, and methods.
Figure 2 Exponential shareholding growth of innovation-based sustainability. Source:Adapted from Ref. 29.
Simply designing a green (environmentally friendly) product does not guarantee sus- tainable development for the following reasons: (a) a product cannot be green if the public does not buy it—business economics and marketing are critical for product acceptance—and (b) a green product is often just focused on the “use” stage of the product life cycle, with envi- ronmental burdens shifted to other life-cycle stages—sustainability requires a comprehensive, multi-life-cycle view. Certainly, industrialized countries have made some improvement in terms of being green with their use of materials, but waste generation continues to increase.
As much as 75% of material resources used to manufacture goods are returned to the environment as wastes within a year.31 This wasting of potential resources is disconcerting now, but over the next 50 years, as the demand for resources increases 10-fold and total waste increases by a comparable amount, this resource wasting could be viewed as tragic.
Countries around the world, especially in Western Europe and Japan, recognize that a concerted effort is needed to meet the global challenge of sustainability. The governments and manufacturers in these regions are well ahead of the United States in addressing the sustain- ability challenge through the development of energy/material-efficient technologies/products, low-impact manufacturing (value creation) processes, and postuse (value recovery) operations.
The European Union (EU) has established the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive to manage the recovery and postuse handling of these products.32 While mandated recovery rates can be met economically by material recycling at present, remanufac- turing and reuse are developing into very competitive alternatives. Another EU directive calls for the value recovery of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) and their components, with 85% of the vehicle (by weight) to be reused or recycled by 2015.33If a company exports its products to the EU, it must conform to these directives. Japan is enacting regulations that closely follow those of the EU. Manufacturers in both the EU and Japan have begun to redesign their prod- ucts to accommodate recycling.34,35The Sustainable Mobility Project, a sector project of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), includes participation from
12 major auto/energy companies globally. The project deals with developing a vision for sus- tainable mobility 30 years from now and identifying the pathways to get there.36,37Each year, approximately 15 million cars and trucks reach the end of their useful life in the United States.
Currently, about 75% of a car is profitably recovered and recycled because the majority of it is metal that gets remelted. The balance of materials, which amounts to 2.7–4.5 million tons per year of shredder residue, goes to the landfill.38It is very clear that U.S. manufacturers lag far behind their overseas competitors in this regard.
As noted above, regulatory drivers are currently forcing European and Japanese com- panies to develop innovative products, processes, and systems to remain competitive. Many in U.S. industry believe that making products and processes more environmentally friendly will increase costs. This can be the case if environmental improvement is achieved through increased control efforts, more expensive materials, etc. However, if improved sustainability is achieved through product and process innovations, then in addition to environmental bene- fits, cost, quality, productivity, and other improvements will also result. Through innovation, discarded products and manufacturing waste streams can be recovered and reengineered into valuable feed streams, producing benefits for the society, the environment, and U.S. industry.
The United States is in danger of losing market share to its overseas competitors because it is not subject to the same drivers for change. It has been shown that manufacturing is responsible for much of the waste produced by the U.S. economy. In terms of energy usage, about 70%
of the energy consumed in the industrial sector is used to provide heat and power for man- ufacturing.39Much of the heat and power required within industry is due simply to material acquisition and processing. Through new technology and innovative products and processes, utilizing previously processed materials for example, these energy requirements can be drasti- cally reduced.
A significant effort has been undertaken by various groups from a range of disciplines to characterize, define, and formulate different forms and means of sustainable development.
Continued progress in sustainable development heavily depends on sustained growth, pri- marily focusing on three major contributing areas of sustainability: environment, economy, and society (see Fig. 2). A relatively less-known and significantly impacting element of sustainability is sustainable manufacture, which includes sustainable products, processes, and systems in its core. The understanding of the integral role of these three functional elements of sustainability in product manufacture is important to develop quantitative predictive models for sustainable product design and manufacture. This integral role of sustainable manufacture, with its three major functional elements (innovative product development;
value design, and manufacturing processes; and value creation and value recovery), all contributing to the sustained growth through the economic sustainability component, has been discussed40(Fig.3).
2 NEED FOR SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE AND ITS APPLICATIONS IN PRODUCT DESIGN AND MANUFACTURE
Sustainable development is now understood to encompass the full range of economic, envi- ronmental, and societal issues (often referred to as the “triple bottom line”) that define the overall quality of life. These issues are inherently interconnected, and healthy survival requires engineered systems that support an enhanced quality of life and the recognition of this intercon- nectivity. Recent work, with details of integration requirements and sustainability indicators, shows that sustainability science and engineering are emerging as a metadiscipline.41,42We are already beginning to see the consequences of engineered systems that are inconsistent with the general philosophy of sustainability. Because of our indiscriminate release of global warming gases, the recent EPA report on global climate change forecasts some alarming changes in the
Environmental Sustainability
Societal Sustainability
Sustainable Living (Health,
Safety, etc.) Sustainable Cities, Villages
& Communities)
Sustainable Development
Sustained Growth
Economic Sustainability
Sustainable Natural Resources
(Oil, Gas, Minerals, etc)
Sustainable Agriculture
Design and Manufacture for Sustainability Product Design for
Sustainability Sustainable
Quality Systems Sustainable
Manufacturing Systems
Sustainable Manufacturing
Processes Industry
Emissions &
Toxicity Plants, Forestry
& Vegetation Water, Soil &
Air Pollution
Figure 3 Integral role of sustainable manufacture in sustainable development.Source:From Ref. 40.
Reprinted with permission of ASME International.
earth’s temperature, with concomitant increases in the sea level of 1 m by 2100.43Obviously, fundamental changes are needed in engineered systems to reverse this trend.
The application of basic sustainability principles in product design and manufacture will serve as a catalyst for sustainable products to emerge in the marketplace. While the sustainable products make a direct contribution to economic sustainability, it also significantly contributes to environmental and societal sustainability. Building sustainability in manufactured products is a great challenge to the manufacturing world. The basic premise here is that, using the product sustainability principles comprehensively, all manufactured products can be designed, manufactured, assembled, used, and serviced/maintained/upgraded, and at the end of its life cycle, these products can also be effectively disassembled, recycled, reused/ remanufactured, and allowed to go through another cycle, and more. This multi-life-cycle approach and the associated need for product sustainability principles bring out an enormous technological chal- lenge for the future. A cursory look at what would be required shows a long list of things to be performed; for example:
1. Known theories will be utilized while new theories emerge for sustainable product design.
2. Effective manufacturing processes with improved/enhanced sustainability applications will be developed and implemented.
3. Sustainable manufacturing systems will be developed to provide the overall infrastruc- ture for sustainable product manufacture.