Platform architecture for sustainable product family design

• Main Author: Tan, Melvin Joseph Hong Thye
• Other Authors: Moon Seung Ki
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering::Prototyping
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/68819
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In an increasingly competitive consumer market, both for diversity in design and green manufacturing, companies are turning to sustainable family of products to meet these needs. Platform architectures require design factors and processes which contribute to the sustainability of the product family over an entire life cycle. Product life cycles are increasingly overlapping with one another as part commonality becomes a design objective for greater re use. Disassembly also becomes another paramount objective of sustainable design as manufacturers seek to maximise the amount of parts re used and materials re cycled in complex platform architectures with a large diversity of materials. A case study of the electric shaver family has been done to analyse design factors for functions and the processes within the platform. Life cycles between a discarded product and a sustainable recycled product have also been compared and discussed to illustrate the impact on ecosystem quality, human health and resources.