scholarly journals Priming on Sustainable Design Idea Creation and Evaluation

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 5227
Author(s):  
Ting Liao ◽  
Erin F. MacDonald

Although three pillars of sustainable design—social desirability, economic competitiveness, and environmental friendliness—are all important, they are not necessarily equally accessible or salient during the design process. This paper applies a collage priming method to activate designers’ mindsets regarding sustainability pillars prior to conceptual design exercises, and to facilitate early-stage sustainable design. The study tests if collage priming (1) improves ideation outcome in terms of the sustainability pillars, interpreted as user desirability, cost, and environmental impact, and (2) encourages designers to further explore others’ ideas during idea evaluation. For (1), collage priming related to environmental aspect is shown to assist designers with generating more relevant ideas regarding environmental impact and more feasible ideas as compared to the control. The priming is not effective in helping designers generate ideas related to user desirability or cost, potentially because designers lack readily accessible information to be activated by priming. For (2), the collage priming related to user desirability is shown to encourage further exploration when exposed to (simulated) others’ ideas. The study shows the effectiveness of collage priming in improving environmental impact in conceptual design; it also demonstrates the existing challenges of addressing user desirability and cost.

Author(s):  
Ting Liao ◽  
Erin F. MacDonald

Priming is a psychological technique that can alter designers’ mindsets prior to conceptual design exercises [1]. For example, priming the five senses enhanced designers’ abilities to communicate sustainability through the product features they designed [2,3]. Although the three pillars of sustainable design — social desirability, economic competitiveness, and environmental friendliness — are all important, they are not necessarily equally accessible or salient during the design process. This paper applies the collage priming method of [2] to (1) increase/improve ideas related to the sustainability pillars, in the eyes of users, and (2) reduce ownership bias and cause a more favorable judgment of others’ ideas, when compared to one’s own ideas. An experiment tests (1) and (2) for the collage priming method versus a reading preparation activity and no prime/activity for effectiveness in these two applications. The participants included graduate design student attendees at the 2016 IDETC conference and graduate engineering students at Stanford. For (1), collage priming is proven to be successful in helping designers to generate ideas that are more environmentally friendly but less successful in helping designers generate ideas related to social desirability and economic competitiveness, as judged by potential users; no more successful than a reading exercise. For (2), we find evidence that the collage priming reduces ownership bias in designers, as measured in their judgment of other (simulated) designers’ ideas, and in this case the reading exercise does not have the same effect.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. S. M. Effendi ◽  
Z. Shayfull ◽  
H. Radhwan ◽  
Shafeeq Ahmad Shamim Ahmad ◽  
Abdul Qayyum Mohd Fauzi ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. S. M. Effendi ◽  
Z. Shayfull ◽  
H. Radhwan ◽  
Shafeeq Ahmad Shamim Ahmad ◽  
Nazirul Mubin Abd Aziz ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2981
Author(s):  
Susanne Feichtinger ◽  
Manfred Gronalt

In the scientific literature, there are numerous studies with different approaches and focuses on assessing the environmental impact of online shopping and shopping in the traditional retail channel. The aim of this work is to analyse scientific studies that quantitatively assess the environmental impact of transport activities in both channels and to extract the factors used for this assessment. A literature search was conducted for the period 2006 to October 2020, with 90 studies shortlisted, of which 15 studies were identified as relevant in a screening process. The analysis showed that a different number of factors is included in the selected studies. Logistics-related and behavioural factors are mostly of similar importance. Third-order effects, such as rebound or complementary effects, are rarely considered. Furthermore, it becomes clear that the results also depend on differences in study design and external factors. This work illustrates the complexity of quantitatively assessing the environmental impact of online and in-store shopping. Caution is advised when deriving recommendations for action from general statements about the environmental friendliness of a distribution channel. The 15 factors found, together with the classification method used, form a solid basis for building new models.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 3504
Author(s):  
Blanka Tundys ◽  
Tomasz Wiśniewski

The aim of the study was to analyze emissions in the supply chain and to identify, based on a literature analysis, which supply chain strategies could contribute to reducing these emissions. A broad spectrum of new supply chain strategy solutions was identified and, based on simulations of selected products, conclusions were drawn and the advantages and disadvantages of theoretical solutions were presented for individual cases. A critical analysis of the literature and simulation methods were used to illustrate the problem presented in this paper, to identify the factors causing greenhouse gas emissions and to draw conclusions in the form of proposals to redesign existing strategies, considering the factors determining the increase in pollution caused by the performed logistics processes. The results of the simulations and the literature analysis indicate that solutions related to the redesign of strategies must consider the specificity of the product and the nature of the chain. Not all proposed strategies are applicable to all chains, and each new strategy must be carefully considered and consider many factors. An important element to reduce the negative environmental impact of chains is a well-thought-out relationship with suppliers, a well-chosen and adapted logistics infrastructure, including means of transport. The presented solutions clearly indicate that the environmental aspect plays an increasingly important role in chain management and influences the applied chain strategies. However, reducing the environmental impact of a chain is not a revolutionary approach and an easy-to-implement strategy change, but a well-thought-out, long-term process that considers the specifics of the products, the possibilities of alternative sourcing and distribution modes, and the need to invest in logistics infrastructure to make it as environmentally neutral as possible.


Author(s):  
Q. Z. Yang ◽  
B. Song

This paper presents a hierarchical fuzzy evaluation approach to product lifecycle sustainability assessment at conceptual design stages. The purpose is to advocate the emerging use of lifecycle engineering methods in support of evaluation and selection of design alternatives for sustainable product development. A fuzzy evaluation model is developed with a hierarchical criteria structure to represent different sustainability considerations in the technical, economic and environmental dimensions. Using the imprecise and uncertain early-stage product information, each design option is assessed by the model with respect to the hierarchical evaluation criteria. Lifecycle engineering methods, such as lifecycle assessment and lifecycle costing analysis, are applied to the generation of the evaluation criteria. This would provide designers with a more complete lifecycle view about the product’s sustainability potentials to support decision-making in evaluation and selection of conceptual designs. The proposed approach has been implemented in a sustainable design decision-support software prototype. Illustrative examples are discussed in the paper to demonstrate the use of the approach and the prototype in conceptual design selection of a consumer product.


Author(s):  
Markus Heck

This chapter proposes the use of modified algorithms for production planning that support both cost optimization as well as environmental friendliness. The key element is the implementation of non-linear cost functions based on ecological considerations for lot-size planning. Lot-size planning is an essential part of industrial production and integral part of ERP-systems. The classical approaches of lot-size optimization, which are widespread in industries, the Wagner-Whitin algorithm and the Part-Period Balancing heuristic, are enhanced with so-called eco-factors. These eco-factors allow an optimization based on cost as well as ecological factors. This eco-enhanced approach combined with the introduced concept of eco-balancing helps to reduce overall production costs. Simultaneously, the environmental impact is significantly reduced, resulting in a better carbon footprint.


Author(s):  
Amir Mirzadeh Phirouzabadi

Nowadays,improving the quality of products, reducing cost and meeting customer’srequirements are necessary to shorten the time of new product development(NPD). NPD is used to describe the complete process of bringing a new product to market and conceptual design process(CDP) is at its early stage and has mostly changed from passive respond toaggressive one. Thus, this study proposed a practical method for CDP in NPDthrough three phases as Converting customers’ requirements to product specifications,Generating and selecting of concepts and Testing and finalizing the concepts byusing some different management-engineering techniques. Firstly, this papertried to prioritize customer’s requirements related to product by AHP (AnalyticHierarchy Process) and convert them to engineering parameters of TRIZ (Theoryof Inventive Problem Solving) in order to define the inventive principals.Next, based on QFD (Quality Function Deployment), we measured the weight valuesof inventive principals. Finally, as FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis)can analyze the weight values and reduce the sequential risk, then finalconceptual design was generated. At the end, a medical glasses was used as acase study of innovative design to validate the method and explain how thestrategies of this research for CDP.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn I. Auma ◽  
Rebecca Pradeilles ◽  
Megan K. Blake ◽  
David Musoke ◽  
Michelle Holdsworth

Abstract Background Healthy and sustainable dietary practices offer a possible solution to competing tensions between health and environmental sustainability, particularly as global food systems transition. To encourage such dietary practices, it is imperative to understand existing dietary practices and factors influencing these dietary practices. The aim of this study was to identify multi-level factors in lived rural and urban Ugandan food environments that influence existing dietary practices among women of reproductive age (WRA). Methods A mixed methods study was conducted. Multiple correspondence analysis followed by hierarchical cluster analysis were performed on dietary data collected among a sample (n = 73) of Ugandan WRA in Kampala (urban) and Wakiso (rural) districts to elicit dietary clusters. Dietary clusters, which were labelled as dietary typologies based on environmental impact and nutrition transition considerations, were reflective of dietary practices. Following this, a smaller sample of WRA (n = 18) participated in a Photovoice exercise and in-depth interviews to identify factors in their social, physical, socio-cultural and macro-level environments influencing their enactment of the identified dietary typologies, and therefore dietary practices. Results Four dietary typologies emerged: ‘urban, low-impact, early-stage transitioners’, ‘urban, medium-impact, mid-stage transitioners’, ‘rural, low-impact, early-stage transitioners’ and ‘rural, low-impact, traditionalists’. Although experienced somewhat differently, the physical environment (access, availability and cost), social networks (parents, other family members and friends) and socio-cultural environment (dietary norms) were cross-cutting influences among both urban and rural dietary typologies. Seasonality (macro-environment) directly influenced consumption of healthier and lower environmental impact, plant-based foods among the two rural dietary typology participants, while seasonality and transportation intersected to influence consumption of healthier and lower environmental impact, plant-based foods among participants in the two urban dietary typologies. Conclusion Participants displayed a range of dietary typologies, and therefore dietary practices. Family provides an avenue through which interventions aimed at encouraging healthier and lower environmental impact dietary practices can be targeted. Home gardens, urban farming and improved transportation could address challenges in availability and access to healthier, lower environmental impact plant-based foods among urban WRA.


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