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Sustainability
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Product Development and Life-Cycle Management
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Product Development and Life-Cycle Management

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2023) | Viewed by 51543

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Paulo Peças

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
IDMEC, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1649004 Lisboa, Portugal
Interests: sustainable manufacturing and operations management; agile and lean manufacturing; industry 4.0
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Uwe Götze

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Chair of Management Accounting and Control, Chemnitz University of Technology, 09107 Chemnitz, Germany
Interests: management accounting and control; investment appraisal; sustainability assessment and management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Marco Leite

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
UNIDEMI, Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica e Industrial, Faculty of Science and Technology, New University of Lisbon, Portugal
Interests: additive manufacturing; agile and lean product design and development; technology evaluation and assessment; rapid prototyping; new services development
Dr. António J. Baptista

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Science and Innovation in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (INEGI), Porto, Portugal
Interests: product and system development; complex system descriptive modelling; multi-dimensional and agnostic performance framework design; sustainability and circular economy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nowadays, the design for sustainable products implies holistic approaches and methodologies. The evaluation and management of the products’ life cycle is a complementary discipline contributing to the achievement of sustainability with regard to products’ and systems’ life spans.

This Special Issue will comprise a selection of papers developing and deploying approaches, methods, and tools for assessing, designing, and managing sustainable products and systems from a life cycle perspective. Research papers should present and discuss, among others,

  • methods and tools to evaluate and select design alternatives based on sustainability criteria assessment;
  • strategies and guidelines to incorporate sustainability assessment, in particular in the early design phase activities;
  • design frameworks and approaches to ensure the life-cycle management of new products;
  • models and tools to support informed and sustainability-based decisions during products’ or systems’ life cycle;
  • Strategies and tools for incorporating social aspects in product development.
  • Implementation frameworks towards sustainable products.

These topics can be addressed by revision-based papers proposing guidelines for design and/or management frameworks or approaches, by research-based papers demonstrating the benefits and limitations of the proposed strategies or methods, or by case study papers exploring and validating tools and models´ applications.

Papers selected for this Special Issue will be subject to a rigorous peer-review procedure with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, developments, and applications.

Prof. Dr. Paulo Peças
Prof. Dr. Uwe Götze
Prof. Dr. Marco Leite
Dr. António J. Baptista
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • new product development
  • design for sustainability
  • design for life cycle
  • life-cycle engineering
  • life-cycle management
  • sustainable production
  • sustainable products

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 15842 KiB  
Article
Climbing Ropes—Environmental Hotspots in Their Life Cycle and Potentials for Optimization
by Sebastian Bradford, Reto Rupf and Matthias Stucki
Sustainability 2021, 13(2), 707; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13020707 - 13 Jan 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 6202
Abstract
This paper examines the environmental impacts of climbing ropes using life cycle assessment (LCA). An online survey was conducted to evaluate users’ behaviour and the potential of an open loop recycling project for old ropes. The results of the LCA study show that [...] Read more.
This paper examines the environmental impacts of climbing ropes using life cycle assessment (LCA). An online survey was conducted to evaluate users’ behaviour and the potential of an open loop recycling project for old ropes. The results of the LCA study show that the production of the base material, polyamide 6, has, at 50%, the highest impact on the total global warming potential of 46.6 kg CO2-eq. per climbing rope and on most of the other environmental issues. At present, there is no practical alternative for a base material. However, the survey indicated a high willingness of climbers to return their ropes for the purpose of recycling. If all old ropes stored at home or being used for non-climbing purposes in Switzerland were to be recycled, 1170 t CO2-eq. could be saved by substituting primary material and avoiding waste incineration. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Product Development and Life-Cycle Management)
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22 pages, 2219 KiB  
Article
Sustainable Business Models–Canvas for Sustainability, Evaluation Method, and Their Application to Additive Manufacturing in Aircraft Maintenance
by Gonçalo Cardeal, Kristina Höse, Inês Ribeiro and Uwe Götze
Sustainability 2020, 12(21), 9130; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12219130 - 03 Nov 2020
Cited by 35 | Viewed by 14999
Abstract
The topic of sustainable business models is growing in literature and in the industry, driving companies to search for opportunities to improve their impact on the three pillars of sustainability—profit, people, and planet (economic, social, and environmental). However, the process of developing sustainable [...] Read more.
The topic of sustainable business models is growing in literature and in the industry, driving companies to search for opportunities to improve their impact on the three pillars of sustainability—profit, people, and planet (economic, social, and environmental). However, the process of developing sustainable business models is often complex, due to conflicting objectives from the three dimensions of sustainability. This paper presents a procedure model that supports the design and assessment of business models with a sustainable perspective, by integrating a new business model canvas for sustainability (BMCS) and an evaluation method to assess it. A comprehensive assessment is proposed, performed in a life cycle perspective. The proposed model is applied and validated with a real case study, based on a new business model for an aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul company. The case is based on shifting from traditional maintenance, repair, and overhaul activities to adopting additive manufacturing as an activity that allows manufacturing optimized spare parts with benefits for the costumer. The results show the application of the procedure model on a specific case study, as well as the potential of additive manufacturing as a driver for more sustainable business models in the aircraft maintenance sector. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Product Development and Life-Cycle Management)
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21 pages, 1378 KiB  
Article
Impact Assessment of Additive Manufacturing on Sustainable Business Models in Industry 4.0 Context
by Radu Godina, Inês Ribeiro, Florinda Matos, Bruna T. Ferreira, Helena Carvalho and Paulo Peças
Sustainability 2020, 12(17), 7066; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12177066 - 30 Aug 2020
Cited by 83 | Viewed by 9995
Abstract
Additive manufacturing has the potential to make a longstanding impact on the manufacturing world and is a core element of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Additive manufacturing signifies a new disruptive path on how we will produce parts and products. Several studies suggest this [...] Read more.
Additive manufacturing has the potential to make a longstanding impact on the manufacturing world and is a core element of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Additive manufacturing signifies a new disruptive path on how we will produce parts and products. Several studies suggest this technology could foster sustainability into manufacturing systems based on its potential of optimizing material consumption, creating new shapes, customizing designs and shortening production times that, all combined, will greatly transform some of the existing business models. Although it requires reaching a certain level of design maturity to completely insert this technology in an industrial setting, additive manufacturing has the potential to favorably impact the manufacturing sector by reducing costs in production, logistics, inventories, and in the development and industrialization of a new product. The transformation of the industry and the acceleration of the adopting rate of new technologies is driving organizational strategy. Thus, through the lenses of Industry 4.0 and its technological concepts, this paper aims to contribute to the knowledge about the impacts of additive manufacturing technology on sustainable business models. This aim is accomplished through a proposed framework, as well as the models and scales that can be used to determine these impacts. The effects are assessed by taking into account the social, environmental and economic impacts of additive manufacturing on business models and for all these three dimensions a balanced scorecard structure is proposed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Product Development and Life-Cycle Management)
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4 pages, 199 KiB  
Communication
An Overview of Current Challenges in New Food Product Development
by Lucia Azanedo, Guillermo Garcia-Garcia, Jamie Stone and Shahin Rahimifard
Sustainability 2020, 12(8), 3364; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12083364 - 21 Apr 2020
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 8882
Abstract
New product development (NPD) is essential for business success and growth. High- to medium-technology manufacturing sectors have introduced standard models. The adaptation of these systematic NPD procedures supported by appropriate decision support tools has provided significant benefits in production cost, product quality and [...] Read more.
New product development (NPD) is essential for business success and growth. High- to medium-technology manufacturing sectors have introduced standard models. The adaptation of these systematic NPD procedures supported by appropriate decision support tools has provided significant benefits in production cost, product quality and supply chain availability. However, the challenges involved in NPD of food are rapidly increasing due to consumer demand for organic and healthy diets, in particular, more nutritious low-calorie food, and preference for customised and personalised food products. This has resulted in a proliferation of new varieties, types and shapes of food products that are constantly introduced. Most of these new products are developed based on company-specific ad hoc NPD procedures, within small to medium enterprises that form the biggest proportion of food producers in most developed countries. This highlights a need for further research into novel NPD methods and tools in the food sector. This communication provides an overview of the NPD processes, analyses their strengths and shortcomings and outlines critical missing capabilities for food manufacturers in specific. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Product Development and Life-Cycle Management)
19 pages, 725 KiB  
Article
Life Cycle Costing: Understanding How It Is Practised and Its Relationship to Life Cycle Management—A Case Study
by Marianna Lena Kambanou
Sustainability 2020, 12(8), 3252; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12083252 - 16 Apr 2020
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 6879
Abstract
Despite the existence of many life cycle costing (LCC) methods, LCC is not widely adopted and LCC methods are usually further tailored by practitioners. Moreover, little is known about how practising LCC improves life cycle management (LCM) especially if LCM is considered emergent [...] Read more.
Despite the existence of many life cycle costing (LCC) methods, LCC is not widely adopted and LCC methods are usually further tailored by practitioners. Moreover, little is known about how practising LCC improves life cycle management (LCM) especially if LCM is considered emergent and constantly developing. In a manufacturing company, LCC is prescriptively introduced to improve LCM. In the first part, this study describes how various methodological choices and other aspects of practising LCC were the outcome of contestation and conformity with extant practices and not only the best way to fulfil the LCC’s objective. This contestation can even influence if LCC is adopted. In the second part of the research, the implications of practising LCC on LCM are explored. LCC is found to positively propel LCM in many ways e.g., by spreading the life cycle idea, but may lead to a narrower understanding of the term life cycle resulting in the sustainability focus of LCM being overridden. The article also discusses how the findings can be taken into consideration when researchers develop LCC methods and when industry practises LCC. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Product Development and Life-Cycle Management)
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18 pages, 1909 KiB  
Article
Economic and Environmental Implications of Quality Choice under Remanufacturing Outsourcing
by Wei He, Lan Liang and Kai Wang
Sustainability 2020, 12(3), 874; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12030874 - 24 Jan 2020
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3117
Abstract
Although many studies have recently investigated how the product quality impacts on economic and environment performance under remanufacturing, all of them assume that remanufacturing operations are undertaken by the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or independent remanufacturers (IRs). However, many OEMs such as Lexmark, [...] Read more.
Although many studies have recently investigated how the product quality impacts on economic and environment performance under remanufacturing, all of them assume that remanufacturing operations are undertaken by the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or independent remanufacturers (IRs). However, many OEMs such as Lexmark, Canon, and Epson filed lawsuits with those IRs without licensing, but outsourced the remanufacturing operations to several contracted remanufacturers (CRs). We therefore extend the prior research to investigate the economic and environmental implications of OEMs’ strategic desired quality level choices under remanufacturing outsourcing. That is, we develop two models corresponding to two scenarios where OEMs (1) undertake remanufacturing in-house or (2) outsource it to a CR. Our results show that, to create a less intense cannibalization problem for new products sales, OEMs would be likely to choose a lower product quality when outsourcing remanufacturing to a CR. More importantly, from the economic perspective, we find that outsourcing remanufacturing to a CR hurts the OEM and the industry. However, from the environmental angle, our results reveal that there is a ratio threshold for environmental impact for different life cycle phases, above which remanufacturing in-house is definitely beneficial for OEM in economics and environment, but for the rest, outsourcing is equally or more environmental-friendly, despite cutting down the profit. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Product Development and Life-Cycle Management)
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