Integrated design of product lifecycles—The fridge case study

To help engineering designers understand and translate environmental constraints into effective actions, new methods and tools for engineering have to be developed and used at the product conceptual design phase. Indeed, this design stage is mainly concerned with the actual trade-off among all the constraints, therefore generating more environmentally benign design alternatives. This paper aims at presenting a method to support designers in the definition of the product lifecycle scenario, including component lifecycle scenarios, when designing the elements of the structure of the product. The current design can be continuously assessed by lifecycle analysis (LCA) methods. The main concept used is the lifecycle brick that has been proposed to support both the product model and the lifecycle scenario. The data encapsulated in the model are computed to outcome quantitative contribution to the environment in now classical eco-points. The method is illustrated via a fridge case study.