Proposed Methodology to Consider Sustainability Impact in Early Design

Published in: Innovation in Engineering, Technology and Education for Competitiveness and Prosperity: Proceedings of the 12th Latin American and Caribbean Conference for Engineering and Technology
Date of Conference: July 21-24,2014
Location of Conference: Guayaquil,Ecuador
Authors: Jorge Rodriguez
Alejandro Mejia
Refereed Paper: #276

Abstract:

As it is widely known, early design stages are key to an efficient overall design process, here is were the most substantial changes can be made with less negative impact to the design cycle. Therefore, the inclusion of sustainability factors at the early stages of the design will allow the creation of environmental friendly products, and better control of costs and design cycle duration from the start. Thus preventing high costs corrections of the design, or costly secondary processes at the end of the product lifecycle. Traditionally, early concept evaluation does not consider sustainability in a holistic way; sustainability analysis tools such as Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and geometry-based carbon footprint calculation are typically applied at later stages of design when full geometric information is present, or full material mass and manufacturing processes has been completely identified. Such requirements limit the capability to integrate sustainability at the early stages of design in a scientific and organic manner. In this work, a methodology is proposed to deal with those limitations by an early estimate of sustainability impact based on product functionality.