Sustainable path modelling: a tool for sustainable product development

摘要

The quest for a product development method that demands sustainability has led to the development of a new tool named 'sustainable path modelling' (SPM). This tool helps to identify alternative options at every stage of product development cycle. These options termed as 'paths', are generated in various stages of product development. For each product development stage, an SPM matrix is constructed with different options and for each option path scores are calculated. Various combinations of paths and their total path scores are calculated subsequently. The path with the highest total path score is considered as the best path for the development of a customer satisfied sustainable product. A case study has been conducted in a bottle manufacturing industry for illustrating the effectiveness of the SPM tool. A sustainable product development path that satisfies various customer requirements has been evolved for a product - 500 ml edible oil bottle. The validation of the proposed tool has also been carried out.