Research on sustainability assessment of manufacturing processes and product design

政府和社会要求制造业减少其运营和产品对环境的影响。可持续制造工艺提供了在保持经济和效率的同时减少资源消耗和废物产生的潜力。目前可持续发展的研究主要集中在产品生命周期分析(LCA)方面。然而，生命周期评价是在产品制造后执行的静态分析过程，此时已经产生了环境影响。LCA工具通常还没有与其他设计分析和工艺优化方法集成。此外，生命周期评价是一种单向可持续性分析工具。不存在用于支持产品(再)设计或(再)制造的材料再利用的物质流动的闭环系统。对于中小型企业(SME)来说，生命周期评价工具非常昂贵，而且知识密集型。这一成本阻碍了中小企业获得有关其产品的可持续性数据的能力；它阻碍了中小企业进入欧洲联盟等潜在市场，欧洲联盟对产品可持续性有非常严格的标准。需要采取替代办法，以动态方式评估制造过程和产品设计的可持续性，以补充产品生命周期。拟议的研究将对与不同类型的制造工艺有关的可持续性因素进行分类和确定。将制定准确的衡量标准，以衡量不同制造过程的可持续性，重点是能源消耗、材料效率、报废回收效率和材料回收率。将开发动态测量方法，从车间收集实时可持续性数据。将创建可持续性信息模型，以跟踪关键因素的历史记录，并在产品设计和制造过程中关联闭环物流。将开发一个可持续产品设计的在线模拟和优化平台，为中小企业提供易于使用的软件工具，以评估其制造过程的可持续性，并提供在线产品设计建议，以提高其产品的可持续性。

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.