Design for sustainable manufacturing: applying modular design methodology to manage product end-of-life strategy

Rapid innovation in technology and ever shortened product life cycles precipitate discarding an increasing amount of used products as waste, which has been considered as one of the major sustainable issues. In order to manage end-of-life products in a sustainable manner, the design for sustainable manufacturing (DFSM) has become a key technology challenge. To this end, this paper presents a methodological framework to help designers apply modular design methodology to manage product end-of-life strategy systematically. Life cycle commonality (LCC) is proposed as a measurement of product modular architecture from an end-of-life strategy perspective. One innovative design space encompassing product end-of-life strategies is integrated into traditional modular design methodology systematically and effectively. Subsequently, decision tree approach is deployed to conduct economic analysis for maximizing manufacturers’ total value recovered from various product end-of-life strategies. An illustrative example is included to demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of the developed methodology lastly.