An Integrated Manufacturing and Product Services System (IMPSS) Concept for Sustainable Product Development

There is increasing pressure for manufacturers especially those in the electronics product industry to adopt sustainable product development due to the current problems of electronics waste (e-waste) and legislations such as the WEEE directives by EU. E-waste is accumulating at an exponential rate in poor developing areas in China and India because of higher rate of disposal of electronics goods. They are causing serious environmental problems as there are improper handlings of these e-wastes due to the lack of knowledge and recycling systems. In this paper, a framework integrating proper end-of-life management into the product development life cycle to close up the loop is proposed. A framework infrastructure system leveraging on the new information and web technologies such as semantic web services and ontology is then proposed to promote effective and efficient sharing of knowledge and information within the entire closed product life cycle.