Sustainable Manufacturing: Challenges, Solutions and Implementation Perspectives

Front matter

Sustainable Production, Life Cycle Engineering and Management Series Editors: Christoph Herrmann, Sami Kara

Rainer Stark Günther Seliger Jeremy Bonvoisin Editors

Sustainable Manufacturing

Foreword

Manufacturing is the main driver for welfare and prosperity of people. However, manufacturing also strongly contributes directly and indirectly to the depletion of natural resources, environmental burdens—affecting the health of animals, humans, and eco-systems—as well as to social conflicts. These negative effects expand along with the worldwide demand for industrial goods, which will further increase since the global population is still growing and less developed countries strive for the standard of living which richer countries already have achieved. And despite being aware of the prevalent limitations of natural resources and emission capacities of our planet, the demand for resources and the related pollution to the environment has continued to rise drastically. Thus, finding solutions towards a more sustainable development of global manufacturing— which simultaneously considers the triple bottom line with the three dimensions of sustainability—is of outmost importance and more urgent than ever.

Researchers of the CRC for Sustainable Manufacturing have taken up the resulting challenges and derived ambitious goals. These goals address the main tasks supporting the shift towards a more sustainable development in manufacturing, which are the identification of challenges and levers for change which matters most, the development of specific solutions to cope with these challenges, and the implementation of decision support methods for supporting deciders in the industry and policy to improve manufacturing activities based on the derived solutions. The identification of challenges requires a system thinking and a life cycle orientation in order to avoid problem shifting. Specific improvement measures may lead to local improvement but create negative effects on other manufacturing sectors, life cycle phases, or environmental impact categories. That means it is necessary to consider and evaluate different manufacturing scales from specific technologies and product concepts to value creation networks and up to global manufacturing activities regarding economic, environmental, and social criteria. Furthermore, innovative solutions must be found to improve technologies, products, and strategies for manufacturing activities which reduces resource demands, create products in the desired quality, and protect the health of workers, customers, vi Foreword and all involved people. These solutions must be transformed into methods and tools—such as mathematical optimization approaches for specific planning problems or life cycle assessment models for products and processes— which supports engineers, planners, and designers in creating value-adding and sustainable products and services.

This publication provides research results which address the aforementioned challenges, solutions and implementation perspectives with regard to manufacturing and sustainable development. It contributes to this urgent topic by describing prevailing trends and findings in industry, economy, and society, by presenting concepts for manufacturing technologies, planning methods, and product designs, as well as by suggesting strategies for knowledge dissemination and employment of solutions within organizations. Overall, the present book gives insight into important fields of actions which are required to make the world worth living in now and for future generations.

Technische Universität Braunschweig Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christoph Herrmann University of New South Wales Prof. Dr. Sami Kara

Preface

If the lifestyles of up-and-coming and also developed societies are shaped in the future by the existing, currently predominating technologies, then the resource consumption at play will exceed every accountable environmental, economic and social boundary known to man. The dynamics of global competition and cooperation can be utilized for lending wings to processes of innovation and mediation towards the ultimate goal and necessity of sustainability on our globe. A special focus lies in condensing engineering to sustainable manufacturing, thus specifically addressing artefact generation shaping human living.

Abstract, intangible concepts and goals, such as sustainability, overburden human beings, engineers and researchers in different ways. To date, it constitutes an overwhelming task to consistently apply a full, balanced view and critical cross-assessment of the full range of relevant dimensions, such as the environment (incl. climate, resources and all other natural systems), the economy and society— the classical three pillars of the modern understanding of sustainability. Furthermore, conducting such assessments on different levels of abstractions creates a personal feeling of powerlessness. Researchers, however, take on the challenge of investigating both laws of interdependence and the underlying core mechanisms in order to provide new systemic views of the challenging concepts and goals of sustainability. Engineers, in addition, attempt to derive methods, processes and technologies to help society and companies in finding holistic, specific and proactive solutions for sustainability. In that mission, sustainability gets broken down into controllable elements within an overall system network: products with their functions and behaviours, material selections, production systems, factories, enterprises, logistic elements, value creation networks, patterns of use behaviours, labour and payroll systems, welfare, health and so forth.

The editors of this book and all contributing authors are of the belief that it is now high time to provide tangible solution sets to address various levels of “system driven realization and delivery oriented” sustainability. Yet what does that actually entail? Unlike the rather general (but necessary) discussions surrounding a “complete enough set” of sustainability development goals, such as the 17 goals agreed by the United Nations in September 2015, a critical urgency is attached to work on

Vii viii Preface

“how such goals need to be realized, and which solutions have to be made available for them.” Manufacturing and its potential to deliver wealth and intelligent solutions to societies and human beings has been selected as a first prime route for investigating which changes are necessary for reaching a true state of sustainability in the future.

Sustainable manufacturing in this sense represents a manufacturing engineering’s approach to coping with these challenges. Manufacturing technology is developed in the direction of economic competitiveness, of environmental compatibility with natural global frame conditions of resource availability and of social welfare with different societal frame conditions to suit the different human communities around the globe. This multidimensional goal system can be balanced by developing adequate economic, environmental and social criteria, with analysis of their interdependencies and application of that analysis for guiding technological innovation in respective economic, environmental and societal frameworks.

Before stepping up and striving for a position from which to set up a “circular economy”—an economy where the value of products, materials and resources is maintained in the economy for as long as possible, and the generation of waste is minimised—it is necessary to determine which elements need to be integrated into such a “system circle.” Hence, the underlying new mind-set of this book assumes that the overall values of sustainability and those specific to sustainable manufacturing can no longer just be driven by assessment factors and goals of the three dimensions environment, economy and society. Instead, it has become necessary to fundamentally change core and specific mechanisms and elements of the following “interacting system of systems”:

e The earth system with its natural resources and all associated ecological, biological and climatic sub-systems

e The societal system(s) and related behavioural patterns which are highly influenced by cultural, religious and ethnic values

e The economic system(s) originally driven by a profit theory based on the traditional production factors, such as land, work and capital, funds which was just recently however hugely impacted by new business model innovations, e.g. caused by the digital transformation

Research efforts in this book have investigated both specific technical approaches for ushering in changes to specific mechanisms (“the technical depth”), and on rather generic terms, overarching theories and methodologies on how value creation and its technical solutions can be variously influenced by specific earth and economic boundary conditions, i.e. the breadth of the overall approach.

The rather limited predictive capability of the timely progression of evolutionary or revolutionary changes to the solution set of sustainable manufacturing remains the first generic challenge of research in this field. This is the reason why system dynamic models are deemed to be appropriate candidates for overcoming such a research dilemma.

Preface ix

The second generic challenge in sustainable manufacturing deals with the contradiction between e the desire to analyse the different aspects of the lifecycle behaviour of a product as narrowly as possible, and

e the obligation to provide a rather lean set of data, information and digital models for the design and determination of a product solution in the “Begin of Life” (BOL) phase of the lifecycle.

The right mix of both is decisive in the pursuit of enhancing the probability of influence on “smart and comprehensive decisions” as part of the engineering process of sufficiently sustainable products.

The ambition behind and need for driving changes from the different development levels of society and economy within both the highly developed and industrialized countries as well as from the perspectives and demands of the less developed and emerging countries represent the third overall challenge in sustainable manufacturing. Positive impact of the manufacturing sector on sustainability will thus only be possible if all participants actively involved think locally and globally.

This book is unique in its comprehensiveness in tackling research and engineering approaches in sustainable manufacturing and its global value creation mechanisms. It is the desire and intention of the editors that this book may serve to truly help researchers, industrial experts, politicians and interested members of society in the process of fully comprehending and further developing new solutions for driving and realizing sustainability with the help of manufacturing solutions. It is therefore an obligation for editors to stay in close contact with the growing community of sustainability oriented researchers, planners, engineering, managers, politicians and responsible individuals in all societies across the world.

Rainer Stark Technische Universitat Berlin

Part I Challenges Jeremy Bonvoisin, Rainer Stark and Günther Seliger

Rainer Stark and Kai Lindow

Jan Christoph Steckel, Gregor Schwerhoff and Ottmar Edenhofer

Part II Solutions for Sustainability-Driven Development of Manufacturing Technologies

Eckart Uhlmann, Klaus-Dieter Lang, Lukas Prasol, Simon Thom, Bernd Peukert, Stephan Benecke, Eduard Wagner, Fiona Sammler, Sebastian Richarz and Nils F. Nissen

Gunther Sproesser, Ya-Ju Chang, Andreas Pittner, Matthias Finkbeiner and Michael Rethmeier

Human-Centred Automation to Simplify the Path to Social

The Duy Nguyen and Jörg Krüger

Part II Solutions for Sustainable Product Development

From Ecodesign to Sustainable Product/Service-Systems: A Journey

Tim C. McAloone and Daniela C.A. Pigosso xi xii Contents

Tom Bauer, Daniel Brissaud and Peggy Zwolinski

Tom Buchert, Anne Pförtner and Rainer Stark

Part IV Solutions for Sustainable Value Creation Networks Johannes Seidel, Ana-Paula Barquet, Giinther Seliger and Holger Kohl

Material Reutilization Cycles Across Industries Friedrich A. Halstenberg, Jon G. Steingrimsson and Rainer Stark

Nicole Oertwig, Mila Galeitzke, Hans-Georg Schmieg, Holger Kohl, Roland Jochem, Ronald Orth and Thomas Knothe

Part V Implementation Perspectives

Sustainable Value Creation—From Concept Towards Implementation: 2... 20:22:22. 5080 oe Bhs esas en Ra ise 203 Steve Evans, Lloyd Fernando and Miying Yang

Ya-Ju Chang, Sabrina Neugebauer, Annekatrin Lehmann,

René Scheumann and Matthias Finkbeiner

Sebastian Schenker, Ingmar Vierhaus, Ralf Borndörfer, Armin Fügenschuh and Martin Skutella

Inducing Behavioural Change in Society Through Communication Ina Roeder, Wei Min Wang and Bernd Muschard

Glossary: 222 yee See ee ee eee ee Ae hat Bes 277

Part I Challenges Jeremy Bonvoisin, Rainer Stark and Günther Seliger

Abstract Sustainability has raised significant attention in manufacturing research over the last decades and has become a significant driver of the development of innovative technologies and management concepts. The current chapter aims to provide a structured overview of the wide field of research in sustainable manufacturing with a particular focus on manufacturing technology and management. It intends to describe the role of manufacturing in sustainability, outline the complementary approaches necessary for a transition to sustainable manufacturing and specify the need for engaging in interdisciplinary research. Based on a literature review, it provides a structuring framework defining four complementary areas of research focussing on analysis, synthesis and transition solutions. The challenges of the four areas of research manufacturing technologies (“how things are produced”), product development (“what is being produced”), value creation networks (“in which organisational context’) and global manufacturing impacts (“how to make a systemic change”) are highlighted and illustrated with examples from current research initiatives.

1 The Role of Manufacturing in Sustainability

Humanity is increasingly confronted with the challenge of dealing with a finite earth—a world with a limited “carrying capacity” (Arrow et al. 1995) and with “planetary boundaries” (Rockström et al. 2009), with some expecting “limits to growth” (Meadows et al. 1972). Owing to the unprecedented growth in population and economic output experienced since the 19th century (respectively six and sixty-fold, Maddison 2006), the stress imposed by humanity on natural equilibria

J. Bonvoisin (X) - R. Stark

Chair of Industrial Information Technology, Institute for Machine-tools and Factory Management, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany e-mail: bonvoisin@tu-berlin.de

G. Seliger

Chair of Assembly Technology and Factory Management, Institute for Machine-tools and Factory Management, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

© The Author(s) 2017 3 R. Stark et al. (eds.), Sustainable Manufacturing, Sustainable Production, Life Cycle Engineering and Management, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-48514-0_1 has reached alarming levels at the same time that it fortifies increasing inequality between early industrialised and emerging countries. The limited capacity of the atmosphere to take stock of the emissions produced by our carbon-based economies, poses a threat not only to natural equilibria, but also to our own daily conditions of living (Edenhofer et al. 2015). The flows of some elements due to human activities, such as phosphor and nitrogen, now exceed natural flows, thus threatening the balance of the metabolism of natural ecosystems (Vitousek et al. 1997). Hence, the risk of “overshooting”, i.e. drawing on the world’s resources faster than they can be restored, while releasing wastes and pollutants faster than the earth can absorb them, is very real and the ongoing, unresolved challenge of our time (Meadows et al. 2004).

Although the concept of “sustainable development” (as defined for example by Brundtland et al. 1987) has received significant attention and motivated numerous initiatives in favour of, e.g. recycling, energy efficiency, the need for action is now nevertheless greater than ever before. This is particularly underscored by the observation that, despite international efforts to combat climate change, the global energy system is carbonizing due to a global renaissance of coal (Steckel et al. 2015). Further and more innovative decarbonisation solutions are therefore urgently needed.

As a major stakeholder in several areas of human living, industry has a great role to play in sustainability. It first contributes significantly to the overall environmental impact of human activity. It represents 26 % of the final energy consumption in the EU 27 (Lapillonne et al. 2013, data from 2013), emits 28.5 % of the greenhouse gases produced in the EU 27 (European Commission 2013) and uses energy which is still generated from fossil energy sources by up to 56 % (Lapillonne et al. 2013, data from 2013). In 2006, the European Commission estimated an overall European energy saving potential of 20 %. In the case of industries, the potential savings are estimated to be 25 %, representing annual losses of about 100 billion euros (European Commission 2006). At the same time, while the precision of production processes reaches ever smaller scales, the energy consumption of corresponding production systems is increasing exponentially (Gutowski et al. 2011). Meanwhile, further increases in energy consumption are anticipated.

Beyond its direct environmental impacts, the discrete product manufacturing sector also influences the resource consumption of its products over their entire lifecycle, and therein plays a critical and complex role in sustainability (Duflou et al. 2012). This role is particularly relevant considering that households in early industrialised countries face a literal “rise of the machines” and are equipped with more products and appliances than only a few decades ago (Energy Saving Trust 2006). The average household in early industrialised countries may own thousands of material items, so managing the volume of the possessions becomes a stress factor (Arnold et al. 2012).

With respect to the social aspects, the industrial sector employs 17 % of the European workforce (Eurofound 2012) and represents more than 23 % of worldwide total employment (International Labour Organization 2014). On the other hand, while working conditions in the manufacturing sector have improved steadily over the last decades (World Health Organization 2013), poor working conditions persist in resulting in as many as 300,000 work-related deaths and economic losses of 4 % of the gross domestic product of the European region every single year (WHO 2016). Globally, industries are responsible for 7.2 % of child labour, or 12 million people (Diallo et al. 2013).

That said, manufacturing stands strong as a crucial sector for the development of economies. Manufacturing generates 14 % of the gross domestic product (GDP) of OECD countries and of Europe according to the OECD (2016),' and 31 % of the world GDP according to the US central intelligence agency (2016).” Beyond this quantitative contribution to the GDP, whose reflection of actual wealth is debatable (see e.g. Costanza et al. 2014), it has been shown that stable specific and sequential sectoral patterns can be observed in economic development processes across the spectrum of countries, with specific manufacturing sectors furthermore playing an important role in initializing economic development processes in poor countries (Radebach et al. 2014). On the whole, thus, basic manufacturing activities seem to be a necessary enabler for the development of modern economies.

To summarize, manufacturing as a subset of the industrial sector (see glossary for disambiguation of the terms) has a threefold impact on sustainability:

it plays a major role in the creation of wealth; it directly contributes to the material metabolism of human societies as it requires material input and produces outputs;

e it indirectly contributes to the material metabolism of human societies as it produces outputs having their own metabolism even after having left manufacturing systems.

2 Existing Approaches of Sustainable Manufacturing

As a counterpoint to this tripartite observation, sustainable manufacturing is defined in the present publication as (see also the glossary for more information on this definition):

creation of discrete manufactured products that in fulfilling their functionality over their entire life cycle cause a manageable amount of impacts on the environment (nature and society) while delivering economic and societal value.

The international research community has been particularly active in the last decades in the development of conceptual or concrete solutions toward sustainable manufacturing (see for example Arena et al. 2009). The objective of the current contribution is to deliver a framework for providing a structured overview of the existing field of research in sustainable manufacturing, with a particular focus on industrial engineering. It intends to outline the complementary approaches required

‘Accessed 09.03.2016. Figures for EU-28/2015 and for OECD/2014. ? Accessed 22.08.2016, last updated 04.02.2016.

for a transition to sustainable manufacturing and their necessary interdisciplinary modus operandi. While Sect. 2.1 provides an overview of previous attempts in this direction, Sect. 2.2 introduces an original framework of sustainable manufacturing, according to which the present book publication is structured. Section 3 is specifically dedicated to the discussion of the challenges of multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary approaches faced by researchers in sustainable manufacturing.

2.1 Review of Published Frameworks

Since the emergence of the first initiatives explicitly termed as green engineering or sustainable manufacturing, several reviews of the field have been undertaken and frameworks have been proposed that identify the complementary areas of research that need to be addressed. Jayal et al. (2010), for example, deliver an overview of strategies for sustainable manufacturing with a particular focus on the modelling and assessment techniques for the development of sustainable products, processes and supply chains. Duflou et al. (2012) provide an extensive review of strategies for energy and resource efficiency in discrete part manufacturing, considering five complementary levers: unit process, manufacturing line, facility, manufacturing system and global supply chain. Based on the evaluation of the potential of these techniques, they estimate potential energy savings of 50 % in the overall consumption in the manufacturing sector. Garetti and Taisch (2012) furthermore published an overview of trends affecting the manufacturing sector, highlighting the challenges raised by sustainability in this sector and the corresponding strategies. They identify four complementary research clusters with a broader focus: enabling technologies, resources and energy management, asset and product lifecycle management, business model and processes. Finally, Haapala et al. (2013) made recommendations for further research on sustainable manufacturing, based on the review of existing initiatives and considering two foci: manufacturing processes and equipment along with manufacturing systems.

It is worth noting that all these reviews identify both sustainability assessment methods and technical strategies (analysis and synthesis) as necessary and complementary approaches to sustainable manufacturing. Analytical approaches are required in order to put words and figures to the problems which may ultimately be solved by synthesis. One example of this is found in the inventory of approaches for energy efficient manufacturing at the unit process level given by Duflou et al. (2012), where data acquisition, computational models and energy assessment methods stand alongside technical solutions such as “technological change” or “waste recovery within the machine tool.” Two of the four publications go further, and state that analysis and synthesis approaches can only be effective if enabled by adapted education tactics. On one side of the equation, a systematic implementation of analysis and synthesis approaches in industry requires that engineers fully appreciate the sustainable manufacturing concepts and are trained in multi-objective decision-making. On the other side, the general public can only foster sustainable production if they fully appreciate the impact of their consumption patterns.

While such reviews identify different yet overlapping scopes, the sustainable manufacturing solutions they identify can be classified into four different areas, which we will call for our purposes layers:

Manufacturing technologies: approaches focused on “how things are manufactured”, i.e. whose object of research lies in processes and equipment, including machine-tools or facilities. Examples of such approaches are among other things: development of new or improved manufacturing processes, predictive maintenance of production equipment, determination of process resource consumption, process chain simulation, or energy-efficient facility building. Product lifecycles: approaches focussed on “what is to be produced”, i.e. whose object of research is the product definition (where product can be understood as a good or a service). Examples of such approaches are among others: asset and product lifecycle management, intelligent product, simplified product sustainability assessment.

Value creation networks: approaches focused on the organisational context of manufacturing activities, i.e. whose objects of research are organisations such as companies or manufacturing networks. Examples of such approaches are among others: resource efficient supply chain planning, industrial ecology.

Global manufacturing impact: approaches focused on the transition mechanisms towards sustainable manufacturing, i.e. whose objects exceed the conventional scope of engineering. Examples of such approaches are among others: development of sustainability assessment methods, education and competence development, development of standards.

Table 1 summarizes how the four cited reviews of the field of sustainable manufacturing correspond to the four identified layers.

Table 1 Four layers of sustainable manufacturing identified in previous frameworks

Layer

Global World (society, . . manufacturing | environment, economy) impact

Object addressed Haapala | Garetti and | Duflou Jayal et al. Taisch et al. et al.

Value creation

Organisations (companies networks and manufacturing

networks) Product Product definition (good ° . lifecycles and service) Manufacturing | Process and equipment . . . . technologies (machine-tool, facility)

As a last observation, it should be noted that although these reviews define sustainable manufacturing as resulting from the consideration of the three dimensions, the specific solutions which they present remain confined to the environmental dimension (or even consider resource efficiency exclusively) and in so doing, elude the social dimension altogether. This is in accordance with the observation provided by Arena et al. in 2009 already, in their extensive state-of-the-art of industrial sustainability study: while the social dimension of sustainability is generally viewed to be worth considering, only few specific solutions have been provided to date which address these social issues. In their summary of published research on the role of manufacturing in social sustainability, Sutherland et al. (2016) state that manufacturing enterprise still lacks standardised approaches for internalising social sustainability and for outlining directions of future work in order to mitigate this situation, such as the further development of Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA).

Based on these contributions and the observations made, the next section introduces a framework structuring the field of the necessary research for enabling the transition to sustainable manufacturing.

2.2 Proposed Framework

Manufacturing activities can be characterised as the interplay of five value creation factors, i.e. human, process, equipment, organisation and product, taking place in value creation modules (Seliger et al. 2011). Value creation modules are, in turn, vertically and horizontally integrated into geographically distributed value creation networks. Value creation modules generate effects on the three dimensions of sustainability that can be measured by sustainability assessment methods.

Following the value creation network model depicted in Fig. 1 and based on the findings of the previous section, sustainable manufacturing can be defined as the necessary interplay of three kinds of approaches:

e analysis approaches, i.e. methods allowing the evaluation of value creation based on the three dimensions of sustainability;

e synthesis approaches, i.e. implementation of these methods in the development of technical systems at all levels of value creation (value creation factors, modules and networks);

e approaches for systemic changes, i.e. to transform business to become standard vehicles towards sustainable processes; in other words: enabling the systematic integration of sustainability in day-to-day decision-making.

These approaches are embedded in the four concentric and sequentially including areas introduced in the previous section: manufacturing technologies, product lifecycle, value creation networks, global manufacturing impact. The interplay of analysis, synthesis and transition approaches and these four layers are name u Factor. creation Network Co

(7 we i, wy? ar

Fig. 1 Value creation network (VCN) model

Global manufacturing impact Q

Value creation networks | \ Product lifecycles |

| Manufacturing technologies

Fig. 2 Interplay of analysis, synthesis and transition approaches and the four areas of sustainable manufacturing (T transition; A analysis; S synthesis)

depicted in Fig. 2 while Table 2 presents their respective scientific disciplines and objects of research. Layers are depicted with more detail in the subsequent sections of this chapter.

Table 2 Objects and scientific disciplines of the four layers of sustainable manufacturing

Layer Object addressed Discipline concerned

Manufacturing Process and equipment Production engineering, factory technology (machine-tool, facility) planning, operation management Product Product definition (good and Engineering design

development service)

Value creation Organisations (companies and Business economics, knowledge networks manufacturing networks) management

Global World (society, environment, Micro and macro-economics, natural manufacturing economy) sciences, humanities, politics, education impact

2.3 Manufacturing Technologies

This layer specifically addresses the two factors of value creation process and equipment. It focuses on the development of production technologies, machine-tool concepts and factory management techniques ensuring that whatever has to be produced, it can be done with economy of resources which likewise uphold social standards.

This first requires determining specific indicators which enable the identification of improvement potential at the process and at the machine level. Examples of these are found in the “specific energy consumption,” an empiric model developed by Kara and Li (2011) for material removal processes and based on measures on machine tools, or the “electrical deposition efficiency,” an analytic model developed by Sproesser et al. (2016) for welding processes. At facility level, cyber-physical systems (Low et al. 2005) and metering techniques (Kara et al. 2011) can be employed in tandem with appropriate facility models and simulation techniques (e.g. Herrmann and Thiede 2009) in order to enable optimal steering of processes within a manufacturing system.

Regarding the development of new technologies, existing efforts encompass, for example, the improvement of welding technologies in terms of resource consumption (Sproesser et al. 2015) or the development of new internally cooled cutting processes (Uhlmann et al. 2012). At the manufacturing cell level, lifetime-extending add-ons for machine-tools (Kianinejad et al. 2016) and of automated workplaces preventing musculoskeletal strain by workers (Krüger and Nguyen 2015), can be cited as examples.

While such solutions form a necessary basis for sustainable manufacturing, macroeconomic calculations underscore that applying best available sectorial technologies in all regional industry sectors across the world would reduce CO, emissions to one-third (Ward et al. 2015). This shows that solutions are required beyond the manufacturing technology level in order to reach e.g. the factor 4 or 10 pinned by some authors as a necessary objective of environmental reduction of human activities (e.g. Weizsacker 1998).

This layer is specifically addressed in the part “Solutions—Sustainability-driven Development of Manufacturing Technologies” of the present book.

2.4 Product Lifecycles

This layer specifically addresses the factor of value creation product. It focuses on enabling the operation of product development processes systematically leading to products which achieve balance of the three dimensions of sustainability, i.e. which generate low environmental impacts while delivering socially useful functions, all available at reasonable production and purchase prices. This requires the application of methods allowing product development teams to systematically integrate sustainability criteria into their decisions.

Over the past decades, a large variety of methods of this type have been developed. As early as 2002, Baumann et al. identified more than 150 methods for “green product development”, i.e. focusing strictly on the environmental dimension of sustainability, while Pigosso (2012) more recently identified 106 of them. The wide range of methods generated by the scientific community led Ernzer and Birkhofer (2002) to state that the difficulty no longer lies in developing design methods, but lies rather in selecting the relevant methods and applying them efficiently. As a matter of fact, existing methodological support for sustainable product development is often criticized for being poorly integrated into the product development process, ultimately leading to additional exertion on the part of product development engineers, and at the same time to low industry diffusion (Rosen and Kishawy 2012; Knight and Jenkins 2009).

Addressing this very issue, Pigosso et al. (2013) developed a maturity model which allows a step-by-step, guided integration of sustainable product development methods in companies. At a more operational level, Buchert et al. (2014) developed an IT-tool aimed at supporting the selection of the appropriate method for a given design problem. From the flipside of the process, some other authors have striven to reduce the diversity of tools through the development of integrated frameworks (e.g. Dufrene et al. 2013). In all cases, a key factor for effective consideration of sustainability in daily product development activities is found in the integration of methods in information systems such as Product Lifecycle Management (Stark and Pförtner 2015).