Assessing sustainability and value of manufacturing processes: a case in the aerospace industry

Abstract

a b s t r a c tIn spite of the growing awareness and significance of accounting for sustainability aspects in product development, design decision support is still immature in this end compared to other decision support areas, such as product performance and manufacturability. This paper proposes a novel decision support method that combines qualitative sustainability assessment techniques with a quantitative analysis, without losing transparency and still covering a full sustainability perspective. The aim is to contribute to an understanding for how to enable value assessment of sustainability issues already in early product development situations. The method, named Sustainability Assessment and Value Evaluation, combines two qualitative sustainability assessment techniques with a quantitative Net Present Value analysis based on alternative future scenarios. A case study, related to the development of a new hightemperature aero-engine component, illustrates both how the sustainability assessment identifies hotspots and clarifies potential sustainability consequences for a new product technology, and how Net Present Value is used to assess alternative solution strategies based on the hotspot, to facilitate early stage decision-making in design. The paper argues that the method serves two main purposes: i) to make sustainability consequences more concrete and understandable during design concept selection activities, rather than to have an exact measurement, and ii) to simplify and prioritize, systematically asking what is important in the sustainability analysis, rather than to reduce the sustainability problem. The method allows undertaking the sustainability assessment in a more structured way than what happens today in preliminary design, through scenario building based on socio-ecological assessments, including back-casting to cover the longer time perspective. In addition, the Sustainability Assessment and Value Evaluation-method provided the design team of a means for displaying sustainability consequences on an equal basis with other decision support tool results.

Introducing Sustainability in Value Models to Support Design Decision Making: A Systematic Review

“…While some aspects of sustainability are partially encompassed by the established drivers for product or service innovation (e.g., specific fuel consumption, lifetime and weight reduction in the automotive and aerospace industry), others are less readily quantifiable (e.g., material criticality from an availability and socio-ecological sustainability perspective) and problematic to use as criteria for decision making [9,10].…”

Sustainability Risk Management for Product Innovation

“…A case study in which ecological footprint was combined with environmental risk assessment was presented by Herva et al (2011). Hallstedt et al (2015) introduced the sustainability assessment and value evaluation (SAVE) method, which combines a strategic sustainability assessment with net present value analysis, based on scenarios. Gargalo et al (2016) suggested a multi-level framework for techno-economic and environmental sustainability analysis through risk assessment to be used in early product development.…”

Workshop Method for Early Sustainable Product Development

“…In a similar approach, Sustainability Assessment and Value Evaluation method (SAVE), qualitative sustainability assessment techniques including sustainability guided questions are combined with quantitative Net Present Value (NPV) analysis. The method allocates sustainability hotspots and clarifies potential sustainability consequences of a new concept (Hallstedt et al, 2015). The SAVE method can support a design team to build NPV scenarios based on possible changes for some identified sustainability parameters.…”