Improving Product Design: Management Tools to Promote Environmentally Friendly Design

9319731 Lave Business面临着越来越大的压力，要求他们在活动、产品和包装的各个方面都做到“环保”。不幸的是，没有人清楚这个目标在操作上意味着什么。我们建议进行研究，以提高企业对回收利用的理解能力，改善他们的产品和工艺设计，并衡量我们合作所带来的改善。我们的工作包括六项任务：改进替代产品或设计对环境的影响。没有量化措施，目标是模糊的，管理绩效也无法评估。2. 评估并实施我们针对一系列IBM打印机的措施。我们将与IBM合作，通过制定和实施我们的措施和方法，达到提高环境友好性的企业目标。3. 实现一个系统，通知IBM的设计人员可选择的设计、材料、选择和其他设计问题的环境影响。我们将探索侵入性和非侵入性系统。4. 检查这些工具可以被设计到公司组织结构中的方式。我们寻求方法，让公司在不耗费高管过多时间或降低产品质量的情况下，以常规和低成本的方式实现环境目标。5. 通过检查我们的工具影响产品设计的程度来调查组织学习，特别是通过我们的指数来衡量，以及这些工具的使用如何在组织中传播，并随着时间的推移对设计师变得更有价值。我们将探讨如何在提高生产力的同时加强环保。6. 把我们的成果和指标转移到另一家生产完全不同产品的公司。福特汽车公司将与我们合作，将IBM的研究成果转移到一个完全不同的环境中

9319731 Lave Business is under increasing pressure to make each aspect of their activities, products and packaging "environmentally friendly." Unfortunately, no one is clear about what this goal means operationally. We propose research to enhance the ability of corporations to understand recycling, improve their product and process design for the environment, and measure the improvements resulting from our collaboration. Our work consists of six tasks: 1. Improve measures of the environmental consequences of alternative products or designs. Without quantitative measures, goals are vague and management performance cannot be assessed. 2. Estimate and implement our measures for a range of IBM printers. We will collaborate with IBM to meet the corporate goal of increased environmental friendliness through developing and implement our measures and approach. 3. Implement a system that informs the designers at IBM of the environmental implications of alternative designs, materials, choices, and other design issues. We will explore both intrusive and non-intrusive systems. 4. Examine the ways in which the tools can be designed into a company's organizational structure. We seek ways to have companies meet environmental goals routinely and inexpensively without excess time of top executives or decreased produce quality. 5. Investigate organizational learning by examining the extent to which our tools affect product design, particularly as measured by our indices, and how the use of these tools disseminate through the organization and become more valuable to designers over time. We will explore how to increase productivity while enhancing environmental friendliness. 6. Transfer our results and indices to a second company making a quite different product. The Ford Motor Company will work with us in transferring the research results from IBM to quite a different setting.***