Solution Space Management for the Development of Ecologically Sustainable Products in the Early Innovation Phase

Lecture notes in production engineering, pp. 12–20

Abstract

Abstract For the successful realisation of ecologically sustainable products, it is crucial to be able to assess the ecological impact of products over their entire life cycle in the early innovation phase. Particularly when deciding between different possible technical solutions to fulfil the desired product functions, it is essential to correctly assess the impact on ecological sustainability of each solution at an early stage to choose the expected to be the most ecological sustainable one. This is particularly evident in the case of products that require for example energy-intensive production processes and technologies or tools with a high material input. However, this is a major challenge due to the uncertainties and lack of information about the environmental impact of technical product solutions and production processes associated with the early innovation phase. In this paper, the concept of a new methodology is derived, which is designed to narrow down technical solution alternatives for a planned product in the early innovation phase. The aim is to be able to estimate as early as possible which technologies, production processes and other product characteristics will later best fulfil the sustainability requirements of the product, with little available and uncertain information. By integrating approaches of environmental sustainability assessment, solution space management and multi-criteria decision making, the proposed methodology supports decision makers in selecting the most promising ecologically sustainable solutions under uncertainty. The method is based on a multi-criteria decision algorithm that is combined with approaches from fuzzy logic and scenario technique.

Authors 4

1. Matthias Mertens corresponding Aachen Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL)

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL), RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

2. Alexander Keuper Aachen Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL)

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL), RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

3. Nikolai Kelbel Aachen Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL)

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL), RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

4. Günther Schuh Aachen Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT

   RWTH Aachen University · Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT

   Affiliation as printed

   Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT, Aachen, Germany

   Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL), RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany