Simulation and analysis for sustainable product development
Journal article, 2013

Simulation plays a critical role in the design of products, materials, and manufacturing processes. However, there are gaps in the simulation tools used by industry to provide reliable results from which effective decisions can be made about environmental impacts at different stages of product life cycle. A holistic and systems approach to predicting impacts via sustainable manufacturing planning and simulation (SMPS) is presented in an effort to incorporate sustainability aspects across a product life cycle. Methods Increasingly, simulation is replacing physical tests to ensure product reliability and quality, thereby facilitating steady reductions in design and manufacturing cycles. For SMPS, we propose to extend an earlier framework developed in the Systems Integration for Manufacturing Applications (SIMA) program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. SMPS framework has four phases, viz. design product, engineer manufacturing, engineer production system, and produce products. Each phase has its inputs, outputs, phase level activities, and sustainability-related data, metrics and tools.Results and discussion An automotive manufacturing scenario that highlights the potential of utilizing SMPS framework to facilitate decision making across different phases of product life cycle is presented. Various research opportunities are discussed for the SMPS framework and corresponding information models. The SMPS framework built on the SIMA model has potential in aiding sustainable product development.

Planning

Sustainable design

Reference framework

Systems approach

Simulation

Sustainable manufacturing

Author

Mahesh Mani

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

University of Maryland

Björn Johansson

Chalmers, Product and Production Development, Production Systems

Kevin Lyons

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Ram Sriram

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Gaurav Ameta

Washington State University Pullman

International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment

0948-3349 (ISSN) 1614-7502 (eISSN)

Vol. 18 5 1129-1136

Subject Categories

Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics

Environmental Engineering

Other Environmental Engineering

Environmental Management

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Areas of Advance

Production

DOI

10.1007/s11367-012-0538-0

More information

Created

10/8/2017