Nachhaltige Produktentwicklung: Eine interdisziplinäre Herausforderung

Sustainable Product Development must aim to develop a product that is sustainable all along its complete life cycle. This life cycle comprises the development phase itself, the production, the use phase as well as the end of life. Since an experienced product developer alone does not have sufficient knowledge regarding all these phases he must rely on experts from other disciplines. Hence, sustainable product development requires an interdisciplinary and cooperative approach. This article presents results and findings from the DFGfunded research project 'Sustainable value creation exemplified mini-factory for remanufacturing'. A methodology is suggested that brings together product developers, process experts and sustainability experts in order to enable for judging on a product's sustainability during the design phase. It combines the 'House of Quality' (HoQ) approach and parts from the life cycle assessment (LCA) method and provides. an according software environment. Workshops revealed that the most important challenge when applying this methodology is to ensure a meaningful linking between technical parameters for product design, the characteristics of the production processes and the indica> tors for sustainability assessment