Volume 9: 23rd International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology; 16th Design for Manufacturing and the Life Cycle Conference
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This paper presents a research effort that is underway to integrate product, manufacturing process, and supply chain models to optimize product design variants in terms of costs and environmental impacts. Integrated sustainable design and manufacturing requires multidisciplinary knowledge from various industrial domains to design and manufacture environmentally-responsible products. Sustainable design should consider life cycle costs and environmental impacts, including those related to materials and energy requirements during the manufacturing, use, and end-of-life phases of a product’s life. This paper discusses important technological requirements in product architecture and integrated optimization to realize integrated sustainable design and manufacturing. Finally, this paper introduces a scalable design environment, called the Sustainable Product Development Collaboratory, which can convey sustainability principles in the context of product architectural design, manufacturing, assembly, and supply chain decisions to designers. Potential benefits of this platform are also discussed.