MUSES: Research and Education in Integrated Assessment Methodologies for Product Design and Strategies

这个环境中的生物复杂性（BE）的目标：材料用途：科学，工程，社会（MUSES）项目是建立一个研究框架，用于开发产品开发的评估工具，集成工程，经济，监管和环境问题。 虽然存在着对这些问题进行个别考虑的分析要素，但环境工具在产品开发中几乎没有实际用途。 这种有限的应用源于缺乏方法，将环境分析纳入适当的工程，经济和监管背景，以便制定一致的战略。 该项目的重点是汽车工业和产品工艺开发问题所面临的环境挑战，这些公司。 其目的是利用这一领域作为试验平台，发展将环境评估与工程、经济和管理分析联系起来的一般方法，形成一个综合产品评估工具，这项努力还强调两个长期教育目标。 一个目标的重点是跨学科的，基于案例的课程开发，以展示通过拟议的研究开发的设计工具的使用。 第二个教育目标是发展来自不同领域的教师的合作能力，包括这些领域的教师发展问题。 这项工作的一个主要特点是组建了一个跨学科的团队，其中包括处理大型工业公司产品开发过程中的多学科问题所需的广泛领域的专家。该规划项目预计将导致对替代工艺，系统和产品开发结构的设计进行基础研究，以优化材料在整个生命周期中的使用。

The objective of this Biocomplexity in the Environment (BE) for: Materials Use: Science, Engineering, & Society (MUSES) project is to establish a research framework for developing an assessment tool for product development that integrates engineering, economic, regulatory and environmental concerns. While the analytical elements exist for individual consideration of these concerns, environmental tools have seen little practical use in product development. This limited application derives from the absence of methods putting the environmental analyses into the appropriate engineering, economic and regulatory contexts so that consistent strategies can be devised. This project focuses on the automobive industry and the product & process development issues arising from the environmental challenges confronting these companies. The intention is to use this area as a testbed for developing general methods of tying environmental assessment with engineering, economic and regulatory analyses, forming an integrated product assessment tool.This effort also emphasizes two long-range educational objectives. One objective focuses on development of interdisciplinary, case-based courses to demonstrate the use of the design tools developed through the proposed research. The second educational objective is the development of the collaborative capabilities of faculty from disparate fields, including issues of faculty development in these areas. A key feature of the work is the formation of an interdisciplinary team that includes experts in the broad range of fields necessary to treat the multidisciplinary problem of refining the product development process in a large industrial firm. This planning project is expected to lead to fundamental research on design of alternative processes, systems, and product development structures that optimize the use of materials throughout their life cycles.