A new method for evaluating the best product end-of-life strategy during the early design phase

Abstract

The choice of an appropriate end-of-life (EOL) destination for discarded products is becoming an important issue for most manufactured products, given the current problems of environmental waste impact and landfill saturation. To address these issues, the design of a product must be optimised with a view to incorporating in that product an environmentally sustainable EOL scenario that respects economic and legislative constraints. The new EOL scenario evaluation method (ELSEM) that we propose in this paper takes these fundamental aspects into account, and provides a method for evaluating the various options for the EOL scenario of a product during early design phase. The ELSEM provides a simple and intuitive tool for designers to help them construct arguments for the EOL decision-making process. It is built using the fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution method, a multi-criteria decision process that is highly appropriate in the uncertain and subjective environment in which the designer works during the early stages of product development. Our method is illustrated with a case study involving a vehicle engine.

Keywords:

• design for environment
• design for end-of-life
• multi-criteria analysis
• fuzzy sets
• ecodesign