An integrated approach to information modeling for the sustainable design of products

The design of more sustainable products can be best accomplished in a tradeoff-based design process that methodically handles conflicting objectives. Such conflicts are often seen between, environmental impact, cost, and product performance. To support such a process, we propose the development of an environment where sustainability considerations are explicitly introduced early into the design process. This explicitness is provided by integrating the requirements information of sustainability standards and regulations directly into the design process. The emergence of the semantic web provides an interoperable environment in which the context and meaning of knowledge about the relationships among various domains can be shared. This work presents an ontological framework designed to represent both the objectives that pertain to sustainable design and the applicable sustainability standards and regulations. This integrated approach not only can ease the adoption of the standards and regulations during a design process but can also influence a design toward sustainability considerations. The usefulness of this model integration is demonstrated by an illustrative brake disk rotor and pads case study. The results show that both the standards and criteria may be considered at early design stages by using this methodology. Furthermore, it can be used to capture, reveal, and propagate the design intent transparently to all design participants.