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R EDUCING E NVIRONMENTAL I MPACT T HROUGHS YSTEMATIC P RODUCT E VOLUTION 1Stewart Coulter and Bert BrasSystems Realization LaboratoryGeorgia Institute of TechnologyAtlanta, GA 30332-0405ABSTRACTWhether propelled by a concern for the environment, increasingly stiff legislation, or higher disposalcosts, companies are trying to reduce the environmental impacts of their products. At the same time,designers are forced to achieve the same, or more stringent, design constraints in less time, balancing theneed to get a product out the door with the desire to improve the product’s functionality. In achieving thisbalance, designers are faced with constraints which must be met and goals which are achieved as much aspossible. The time-to-market constraint often forces designers to use a solution which does not achievethe goals fully. Without government legislation forcing immediate compliance, environmental issues aretreated as goals that are only addressed after constraints such as functionality and safety have beenachieved. Candidate designs are often so constrained that addressing environmental goals provesimpossible. It is our contention that a systematic approach to designing a product over several revisions,creating a systematic evolution of a given product, will facilitate achievement of environmental goalswithin the constraints of the design process for this product. In this paper, we outline the needed elementsfor such a systematic multi-iterational design strategy and provide an example illustrating the creation ofintermediate environmental targets.1 PROBLEM DEFINITION1.1 Iterative revisions: gradually improving the productMost products are not simply designed once and then manufactured until the market is exhausted.Instead, products undergo a process of iterative revision. For example, the 1994 version of a car model isoften a revision of a 1993 version of that model. Both versions would be considered iterations of thegeneral model. Products are gradually improved through this re-design process, where the designers canimprove on the original design, maintaining the good elements and addressing problems. This allowsdesigners to produce a product in a timely manner while gradually approaching product goals overmultiple iterations through a process of revision. For example, in designing a vehicle, safety constraintsmust be met for each revision, but the time constraints on the design process might mean that a targetweight might not be achieved until, say, the fifth product iteration.It is our belief that this redesign process provides a chance to improve the environmentalfriendliness of a product. By extending the design process over several revisions, or creating a systematicevolution of a given product, we believe that environmental goals can be addressed within the constraintsof the design process for this product. In employing this strategy, a manufacturing firm would create aplan for multiple revisions of a given product. This overall plan would allow engineers to recognize whatfuture constraints would affect the product (and processes) and work towards those constraints overseveral product revisions. This concept is illustrated in Figure 1. Given a limit on environmental impact 1 Published in International Journal of Environmentally Conscious Design & Manufacturing, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1997,pp.1-10.