Trade-offs between sustainability criteria and engineering design variables can lead to sub-optimisations and costly short-term priorities. This study explores how sustainability requirements can be identified and integrated in product requirements to guide strategic and tactical decisions in product development including sustainability perspectives. Literature review and action research resulted in a proposed systematic approach that: define sustainability criteria and indicators; use correlation analysis with QFD; and adds identified specific sustainability requirements to requirement list.

This research provides insights into how sustainability considerations in engineering product design can be addressed through early stages of requirement management processes. Five key elements for successful implementation of sustainable product development from a requirement management perspective are presented, demonstrating how organisational sustainability maturity can be linked to the design and structure of a company’s operational management system. Through a thematic analysis of fifteen interviews with representatives from seven Swedish product developing-and manufacturing companies, critical activities and roles, examples of methods and tools utilisation and implementation, together with challenges and opportunities were identified. This empirical data was used to develop, test and refine a model in which key characteristics of sustainable product design and engineering design were coupled, resulting in a profile model for management of sustainability in requirements. Product developing companies can use the profile model as guidance towards necessary actions that enhance organisational sustainability maturity. Motivated by a low uptake rate of sustainability design tools in industry, this study brings attention to organisational capabilities for successful implementation of sustainable product development. As a lack of traceability is a potential cause, strategic socioecological contextualisation of needs is suggested to improve the chain of decision making in engineering design projects. The guiding research question was ‘What are sustainability requirements and how are they identified and managed in design projects?’. The main contribution is a proposed conceptualised model that aims to support design teams to identify and manage sustainability in requirements for engineering design projects. Future studies will test and validate the model.

This paper addresses two critical aspects of sustainability integration in product design and development. The first aspect considers the scope and rigor of the approach to identify criteria to guide development of solutions with high sustainability performance, i.e., the depth and detail. The second aspect is the limited implementation of existing sustainable product development approaches in industry, which wants new tools and methods to be quick and easy to use. In three use case applications the approaches to identify leading sustainability criteria are evaluated. The results are discussed to provide guidance for industry and academia in what approach to select depending on design context, as well as directions for future research.

Despite advances in pharmacological research providing means for individually customized patient attribute treatments, the 'one-size-fits-all' paradigm remains. Customization is associated with cost increases and the value assessment of customized medicinal products shows upon a narrow economic focus. Inspired by value models, emerging in manufacturing industry research, this study suggests a novel methodology encompassing a full sustainability perspective, including the social, economic and ecological dimension, for design decision support for medicinal products. A concept screening matrix is adapted, using sustainability criteria as value indicators. The focus is to create value for the whole pharmaceutical value chain whilst keeping the core purpose of medicinal products, i.e. to bring societal benefits. An illustrative case study presents an application of the methodology on a commercial product for curing hypertension. The traditional product design for hypertension treatment is compared to a customized product design. Results indicate that a customized product design is preferable if value is to be created from a social or/and an ecological sustainability perspective.

Product development and manufacturing continues to be a profound contributor to the socio-ecological problems and challenges we are facing in our world today. For products to contribute to sustainability requires not only that socio-ecological lifecycle impacts are considered in the initial stages of the product innovation process, but that they are maintained as integral product requirements. Although research offers a plethora of approaches, methods, and tools for sustainable product development, the implementation in industry remains low. The focus of this research is a less explored area of sustainable product development implementation, the management of needs identification and propagation of design requirements. The purpose is to: i) add to state of knowledge about current practices of sustainability integration into requirements, and ii) the academic discussion on implementation of sustainable design and product development. A self-assessment approach for sustainability integration into requirements is tested. The purpose of the approach is to support improvement of the requirements management process design, including activities and competencies, for engineering design. Four Swedish product development and manufacturing companies tested the approach, from which the results are used to evaluate usefulness, usability, and effect potential. The findings are discussed together with key characteristics for requirements and sustainability criteria, providing insights to ensure that socio-ecological considerations are both influencing the initial requirement specification, and maintained as decision parameters throughout the product development process.

This research seeks to investigate the effects of a Group Model Building approach on the sustainability knowledge base prior to the weighting of design requirements. Current practice shows that the knowledge about sustainability impacts and implications on other design objectives often is limited and dispersed among decision-makers. Including sustainability criteria in needs and requirements, therefore, tend to rely on limited knowledge and decision-support, leading to decision-makers often prioritizing design objectives that they are more experienced with. The aim of this research was to capture and discuss effects on team alignment of contextual sustainability understanding from co-modeling impacts and implications of sustainability on other design objectives. The research question guiding the study is ‘what are the effects of a group model building approach on early sustainability design decisions?’. A mixed-methods research, structured according to four assumptions, was designed to analyze effects quantitatively and qualitatively. The assumptions were that the proposed approach helps design teams foster an improved contextual sustainability understanding, align the view of the relative importance of sustainability, identify suitable sustainability improvement, and increase the knowledge maturity of their design decisions. The results triangulation showed that the participants showed signs of improved sustainability understanding of their design projects and that improvement actions were identified from applying the approach. A statistically relevant converging effect could be found on the team alignment of the weighting of sustainability criteria but not on the knowledge maturity. These findings are discussed to conclude on main contributions, limitations, and areas for future work.

In this research some systemic forces to sustainable design are described and mapped out, along with key areas, dimensions and stakeholders. These results are visualized in a causal loop diagram (CLD), which was the outcome of a group model building approach supported by a literature review. Within the proposed system model, represented by the system-level variables and their relationships within the CLD, some potential leverage points that can help make product design better contribute to sustainability are identified and described. These can be found in the balancing and reinforcing feedback loops of the CLD as well as the mapping to societal dimensions of sustainability transitions and stakeholder groups. Among the stakeholder groups, business managers, scientific researchers and engineering designers can be tied to the design community. Future research is proposed to build on these initial results to deepen the knowledge about the systemic drivers and barriers and leverage the contribution of design practice to sustainable development. © ICED 2021.All right reserved.