Improved Environmental Performance through Product Development (Miljøorienteret produktudvikling) (1997)

The issue of this dissertation is the exploitation of the innovation power of product development to achieve improved environmental and business performance. The research is application oriented and uses a combination of three perspectives on the research issue: business, product development, and environment. The characteristics of the environmental issue are investigated, both from a technical perspective and from a business perspective. These characteristics lead to a set of challenges in the key activities in the product development: the scoping of the environmentally oriented product development efforts, the identification of environmental solutions, and the realization of the identified environmental product and life phase system solutions.
These challenges represent business opportunities for the companies that are capable of unlocking them. In the search for insight and approaches, this research has applied interviews and visits to national and international practitioners and researchers as important sources of information. The results of the research concern the different links on the decision chain of product development; from the long term business decisions to the design decisions within the product development projects. The form of the results ranges from phenomenon models over information models to applicable approaches. Among the contributions of this research are:
• A clearer understanding of the importance of both the product and the life phase system when considering the environmental impacts associated with a product.
• A description of the phenomenon of the double synthesis ; the synthesis of the product life cycle along with the synthesis of the product.
• An exploration of how the decision chain of product development as a framework can facilitate the concerns for business, environment, and product development.
• Illustrating how the life cycle perspective can be applied in business development and product planningfor ambitious changes.
• A clear indication of the advantage of separating the environmental concept development from the current and ongoing product development project activities (applying an off-line approach).
• Identification of types of environmental project activities (synthesis of product, synthesis of the life cycle, focus efforts, formulate goals and verify results) and how they relate to a general phase structure of a product development project.
• An initial formulation of generic environmental milestone evaluation questions for phase structured product development projects.
Resume
Denne afhandling beskcftiger sig med virksomheders udnyttelse af fornyelsesevnen i produktudvikling til forretningsskabelse og reduktion af miljobelastningen. Forskningsprojektet er anvendelsesorienteret og kombinerer en forretningsorienteret, miljomcssig og produktudviklingsorienteret angrebsvinkel pa emnet. Miljoomradets karakteristika undersoges bade fra et teknisk og forretningsmcssigt perspektiv. Disse karakteristika skaber en rckke udfordringer i produktudviklingens tre centrale aktiviteter: fastscttelsen af miljomcssig fokus og mal for udviklingsarbejdet, identifikationen af miljomcssige losninger samt realiseringen af de identificerede produkt og livsfasesystem losninger. Disse udfordringer reprcsenterer forretningsmuligheder for de virksomheder, der er i stand til at handtere dem. Dette forskningsprojekt har tilvejebragt indsigt og fremgangsmader ved brug afbesog og interviews hos nationale og internationale virksomheder og forskere. Resultaterne af forskningen relaterer sig til de forskellige led i beslutningskcden for produktudvikling: fra de langsigtede forretningsbeslutninger til konstruktionsbeslutningerne undervejs i produktudviklingsprojekterne. Resultaterne optrcder i form af hhv. fcnomenmodeller, informationsmodeller samt fremgangsmader og anvisninger. Blandt forskningsprojektets bidrag er: • En forbedret forstaelse af betydningen af samspillet mellem produkt og livsfasesystemer m.h.t. de produktrelaterede miljobelastninger.
• Beskrivelse af fcnomenet dobbelte syntese : den samtidige syntese af produktet og produktets livsforlob.
• Undersogelse af hvordan beslutningskcden for produktudvikling kan danne ramme for sammenkcdning afmiljo- ogforretningshensyn i anvendelse afproduktudviklingskompeteneen.
• Illustration af hvordan livsforlobstankegangen kan anvendes i forretningsudvikling og produktplanlcgning.
• En klar indikation affordelen ved at separere (off-line) den konceptuelle miljoorienterede udviklingsindsats fra de lobende produktudviklingsprojekter.
• Identifikation af miljomcssige projektaktiviteter. (Syntese af produkt, syntese af livsforlob, fokusere miljoindsats, formulere miljomcssige mal samt verificere resultatskabelsen).
• Formulering af generiske miljomcssige noglepunktsevalueringer forfaseopdelte produktudviklingsprojekter.