Research on sustainability assessment of manufacturing processes and product design

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Manufacturing industries are mandated by governments and society to reduce the environmental impact of their operations and products. Sustainable manufacturing processes offer the potential to reduce resource consumption and waste generation while remaining economic and efficient. Current sustainability research mostly focuses on product Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). However, LCA is a static analysis process performed after a product is manufactured, by which time the environmental impacts have already been generated. LCA tools are typically not yet integrated with other design analysis and process optimization methods. Also, LCA is a one-direction sustainability analysis tool. There is no closed-loop for material flow to support material reuse for product (re-)design or for (re-)manufacturing. For Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs), LCA tools are very expensive and knowledge-intensive. This cost hinders the ability of SMEs to acquire sustainability data about their products; it impedes SMEs to enter potential markets such as the European Union, which has very demanding standards for product sustainability. Alternative approaches are needed to assess the sustainability of manufacturing processes and product design in a dynamic manner in order to supplement product life cycle. The proposed research will categorize and identify sustainability factors associated with different types of manufacturing processes. Accurate metrics will be developed to measure the sustainability of different manufacturing processes with a focus on energy consumption, material efficiency, end-of-life recycle efficiency, and material recovery rate. Dynamic measurement methodologies will be developed to aggregate real-time sustainability data from the shop floor. Sustainability information models will be created to track the history of key factors and associate closed-loop material flow during product design and manufacturing processes. An online simulation and optimization platform for sustainable product design will be developed to provide SMEs with easily accessible software tools to assess the sustainability of their manufacturing processes, and to provide on-line product design suggestions to improve the sustainability of their product.