Sustainable Operations Management (DOM403)

Sustainability and new

product design -II

Dr Sandeep K. Gupta (PhD, MBA, M.Tech)

Assistant Professor, SME, SNU
Video on Reuse
 Product Life Cycle (PLC)
 The first perspective is the Physical Life Cycle (PLC), which
interprets the life cycle of the product through a series
of phases and physical transformation processes of
materials and energy, such as the extraction and
manufacturing of materials, their transformation and
assembly, their distribution, their use and the recovery
and recycling of the product materials.
 In the case of the PLC, time scale is linked to the
duration of the useful life of a product, which may range
from a few days for a consumer good to years for a
durable good.
 Product Life Cycle (PLC)
 The responsibility of the PLC and its connected impact is divided
among the various actors involved in the different phases of the
purchase, production and distribution processes.
 for example, the design, production, delivery, use and dismantling of a
complex good such as industrial machinery: the responsibility for the
proper management of its physical life cycle depends on how it is
designed & built, but also on the methods of its use &
maintenance, the possibility of ensuring a second life through the
transfer of useful components to the secondary market or their
reuse and the recycling of recoverable materials at the end of the
cycle.
 The ability to optimise sustainability along the PLC is therefore
also distributed among the different parties involved in the
production and distribution processes, due to their ability to acquire
materials and energy in an effective and efficient manner and to
create different recovery and recycling options at the end of the
useful life cycle.
 Business Life Cycle (BLC)
 The second perspective refers to the Business Life Cycle
(BLC), which involves a sequence of different management
activities & process phases, sequenced according to the
stage and gate approach (Cooper, 1975), such as the
creation of the product concept & its development, launch,
production, maintenance, revaluation & renewal into
next‐generation products.
 In this case, the time scale depends on technological
developments and the obsolescence ratified by the
markets.
 Business Life Cycle (BLC)
 The responsibility of the BLC and the connected business
impact, to be understood in terms of the profits & losses
generated, as well as its sustainability, are substantially
referable to the individual company producing the good, and
its capacity to innovate by developing product extensions or
revisions that are capable of satisfying the demands of the
markets.
 Product designers and developers, traditionally, have mainly
acted from the BLC perspective, making design & management
choices that are in keeping with the goals to reduce time to
market, using concurrent engineering and product‐extension
approaches, through simultaneous engineering and product
revitalisation with product upgrading and so on.
Continue…
 More and more frequently, however, considerations related to
the PLC emerge during new product development, in
particular with regard to the need to evaluate the
environmental implications of the choices made on the
materials used, packaging, assembly systems, storage and
transportation and the implications of these decisions in
terms of recovery options at the end of the life cycle.
 In fact that the design choices implemented during the BLC
may significantly condition the margins of discretion available
to the parties responsible for the management of the PLC of
the product, from a Cradle‐to‐Cradle perspective.
 Continue…
 for example, that the designer who is attentive to sustainability
trends must select the materials used or the industrial
treatments to transform them or even energy solutions that
can be adopted.
 These choices have to be based not only on the objectives to
quickly launch the product or to develop platforms created to
release several generations of products, which are typical
objectives linked to BLC, but also on PLC objectives, focusing
on minimising the riskiness of the materials themselves,
maximising the use of renewable energy sources, or their
greater ease of reuse versus their disposal at the end of their
life cycle.
 Design for approaches
 The importance of careful product design is in fact often
underestimated by companies that develop a general outline of
products and prototypes, and then proceed with the modifications and
the completion of the bill of materials at a later time, often once
production has already started.
 In various studies it has been estimated that more than 70% of the life
cycle costs of a product are conditioned during the design phase
(Gatenby and Foo, 1990; NRC, 1991) & that a modification made
during the design phase costs one‐tenth of the cost of the same
modification during the prototype phase and one‐hundredth of the
cost of the same modification to be made to the launched product
(Stroufe and Melnyk, 2013).
 Therefore, the attributes that a product consistent with sustainability
requirements must immediately form a part of the skills and
knowledge of the designers, as well as the design specifications of the
product and its packaging, in addition to the process to manufacture it.
 Blue Jeans and Sustainability
The recent drought in California is hurting more than just farmers. It is also
having a significant impact on the fashion industry and spurring changes in how
jeans are made and how they should be laundered. Southern California is
estimated to be the world’s largest supplier of so-called premium denim, the
$100 to $200-plus-a-pair of designer jeans. Water is a key component in the
various steps of the processing and repeated washing with stones, or bleaching
and dyeing that create that “distressed” vintage look. Southern California
produces 75% of the high-end denim in the U.S. that is sold worldwide. The
area employs about 200,000 people. Now that water conservation is a global
priority, major denim brands are working to cut water use. Levi, with sales of
$5 billion, is using ozone machines to replace the bleach traditionally used to
lighten denim. It is also reducing the number of times it washes jeans. The
Sources: The Wall Street Journal (April 10, 2015) and New York Times

company has saved more than a billion liters of water since 2011 with its Levi’s
Water Less campaign. By 2020, the company plans to have 80% of Levi’s brand
products made using the Water Less process, up from about 25% currently.
Traditionally, about 34 liters of water are used in the cutting, sewing, and finishing
process to make a pair of Levi’s signature 501 jeans. Nearly 3,800 liters of water
are used throughout the lifetime of a pair of Levi’s 501. A study found cotton
cultivation represents 68% of that and consumer washing another 23%. So Levi
is promoting the idea that jeans only need washing after 10 wears . (The
average American consumer washes after 2 wears.) Levi’s CEO recently urged
people to stop washing their jeans, saying he hadn’t washed his one-year-old
(March 31, 2015).

jeans at the time.“You can air dry and spot clean instead,” he said.
Carbon Footprint of a 34.5-gram Bag of
Frito-Lay Chips
Video on Recycle
 Design For X (or Design for eXcellence)
 Aimed at using ad hoc design solutions to anticipate the
subsequent management of problems linked to business processes
that involve a new product along its production, distribution, use
and disposal phases.
 Several examples of this are the techniques of
◦ Design for Manufacturing/production, aimed at facilitating automated
manufacturing processes;
◦ Design forTo Assembly, in whichtoproduct
provide guidelines components
design with arefor
consideration designed
the taking
the efficiency of product
whole the subsequent assembly
life cycle, British methods
Standards into account;
Institution (BSI)
◦ Design forpublished
Quality, aimed
BS 8887‐1at improving
series (2006)product quality
Design for and facilitating its
Manufacture,
control; Assembly, Disassembly and End of Life processing (MADE).
◦ Design for Logistics, aimed at improving efficiency in transportation,
storage and the use of packaging materials; and
◦ Design for Recycling, aimed at encouraging recovery processes at the end
of life cycles and so forth
 Design and Production for Sustainability
 Life cycle assessment evaluates the environmental impact of
a product, from raw material and energy inputs all the way to
the disposal of the product at its end-of-life.
 The goal is to make decisions that help reduce the
environmental impact of a product throughout its entire life.
 Focusing on the 3 Rs— reduce, reuse, and recycle— can help
accomplish this goal. By incorporating the 3 Rs, product
design teams, process managers, and supply-chain personnel
can make great strides toward reducing the environmental
impact of products—to the benefit of all stakeholders.
 Product Design
 Product design is the most critical phase in product life cycle
assessment. The decisions that are made during this phase
greatly affect materials, quality, cost, processes, related
packaging and logistics, and ultimately how the product will
be processed when discarded.
 Considering first R, companies can reduce waste and energy
costs at the supplier, in the logistics system, and for the end
user.
 For instance, by taking a systems view, Procter & Gamble
developed Tide Coldwater , a detergent that gets clothes clean
with cold water, saving the consumer about three-fourths of
the energy used in a typical wash.
Other successful design efforts include:
 Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel eliminated bars of soap and bottles
of shampoo by installing pump dispensers in its bathrooms,
saving the need for 1 million plastic containers a year.
 UPS reduced the amount of materials it needs for its
envelopes by developing its reusable express envelopes, which
are made from 100% recycled fiber. These envelopes are
designed to be used twice, and after the second use, the
envelope can be recycled.
 Coca-Cola’s redesigned Dasani bottle reduced the amount
of plastic needed and is now 30% lighter than when it was
introduced.
Continue…
 Tom Malone, CEO, of MicroGreen
Polymers, discusses the company’s new
ultra light cup with production
personnel. The cup can be recycled
over and over and never go to a
landfill.
 Another new design is the “winglet”.
These wing tip extensions increase
climb speed, reduce noise by 6.5%, cut
CO2 emissions by 5%, and save 6% in
fuel costs. Alaska Air has retrofitted its
entire 737 fleet with winglets, saving
$20 million annually.
DESIGN FOR DISASSEMBLY
 Sound Barrier, Inc., needs to decide which of two speaker designs is
better environmentally.
APPROACH: The design team collected the following information for
two audio speaker designs, the Harmonizer and the Rocker:
1. Resale value of the components minus the cost of transportation to
the disassembly facility
2. Revenue collected from recycling
3. Processing costs, which include disassembly, sorting, cleaning, and
packaging
4. Disposal costs, including transportation, fees, taxes, and processing
time
 SOLUTION
 The design team developed the following revenue and cost
information for the two speaker design alternatives:
What would happen if there was a change in the
supply chain that caused the processing and
disposal costs to triple for the laminate back
part of the Harmonizer?
 Production Process
 Manufacturers look for ways to reduce the amount of
resources in the production process.
 Opportunities to reduce environmental impact during
production typically revolve around
◦ the themes of energy, water, and environmental contamination.
◦ Conservation of energy and improving energy efficiency come
from the use of alternative energy and more energy-efficient
machinery.
 Examples
 S.C. Johnson built its own power plant that runs on natural gas and
methane piped in from a nearby landfill, cutting back its reliance on
coal-fired power.
 PepsiCo developed Resource Conservation (ReCon) , a diagnostic tool
for understanding and reducing in-plant water and energy usage. In
its first 2 years, ReCon helped sites across the world identify 2.2
billion liters of water savings, with a corresponding cost savings of
nearly $2.7 million.
 Frito-Lay decided to extract water from potatoes, which are
80% water. Each year, a single factory processes 350,000 tons of
potatoes, and as those potatoes are processed, the company reuses
the extracted water for that factory’s daily production.
 Logistics
 As products move along in the supply chain, managers
strive to achieve efficient route and delivery networks, just
as they seek to drive down operating cost. Doing so
reduces environmental impact.
 Management analytics (such as linear programming,
queuing, and vehicle routing software) help firms
worldwide optimize elaborate supply-chain and
distribution networks.
 Networks of container ships, airplanes, trains, and trucks
are being analysed to reduce the number of miles travelled
or the number of hours required to make deliveries.
 Examples
 UPS has found that making left turns increases the time it
takes to make deliveries. This in turn increases fuel usage and
carbon emissions. So UPS plans its delivery truck routes with
the fewest possible left turns. Likewise, airplanes fly at
different altitudes and routes to take advantage of favourable
wind conditions in an effort to reduce fuel use and carbon
emissions.
 Food distribution companies now have trucks with three
temperature zones (frozen, cool, and nonrefrigerated)
instead of using three different types of trucks.
 Whirlpool radically revised its packaging to reduce “dings
and dents” of appliances during delivery, generating huge
savings in transportation and warranty costs.
Life Cycle Ownership And Crossover Analysis
Blue Star is starting a new distribution service that delivers auto parts to the
service departments of auto dealerships in the local area. Blue Star has found
two light-duty trucks that would do the job well, so now it needs to pick one
to perform this new service. The Ford TriVan costs $28,000 to buy and uses
regular unleaded gasoline, with an average fuel efficiency of 24 miles per
gallon. The TriVan has an operating cost of $.20 per mile. The Honda CityVan,
a hybrid truck, costs $32,000 to buy and uses regular unleaded gasoline and
battery power; it gets an average of 37 miles per gallon. The CityVan has an
operating cost of $.22 per mile. The distance traveled annually is estimated to
be 22,000 miles, with the life of either truck expected to be 8 years. The
average gas price is $4.25 per gallon.

Total life cycle cost = Cost of vehicle + Life cycle cost of fuel + Life cycle operating cost

a) Based on life cycle cost, which model truck is the best choice?
b) How many miles does Blue Star need to put on a truck for the costs to be equal?
c) What is the crossover point in years?