Daniel Collado-Ruiz

Estimating Environmental Behavior Without Performing a Life Cycle Assessment

Many authors have agreed on the interest of considering environmental concerns in the early stages of product development. However, most eco�?design tools are based on life cycle assessment principles and require a model to give information about the products environmental performance. This modeling can have negative effects on team performance and on the potential for innovation, not to mention on the projects duration. Additionally, the model requires information that is not available in the early design stages. This article analyzes the potential of inferring conclusions about the life cycle stages with the highest impact by using similar products. From a database of previous products, environmental profile estimations are carried out, that is, the assessments of the contribution of each life cycle stage to the total impact and the variability of this measure. It is then possible to discard - or ensure consideration of - life cycle stages. Furthermore, the level of the conclusions is assessed on a five�?point scale. The proposed approach is applied to four case studies with different levels of abstraction and the relevance of the conclusions is assessed. The article resolves the problems regarding potential for estimating the distribution of the environmental impacts along the life cycle.

Modularity and Ease of Disassembly: Study of Electrical and Electronic Equipment

A common recommendation when designing for disassembly is to develop more modular products. The common belief is that an increase in modularity will systematically reduce the time required in order to disassemble the product, reducing the cost of the process. This paper studies the statistical relationship between these two concepts by comparing 15 different electrical products. Modularity and disassembly performance are assessed by different indicators each and their correlation is analyzed. The results show that the aforementioned relationship cannot be statistically proven and, for some of the cases, even inverse correlation is found. Factors such as product structure or selected end-of-life strategy are more important than modularity in end-of-life performance. Systematic modularization can even result in products with a worse behavior: For most electrical equipment, generating modules from a functional or manufacturing point of view will most probably result in worse end-of-life performance. It is only for modules with very specific properties that performance can be guaranteed.

Influence of Environmental Information on Expert-perceived Creativity of Ideas

Target setting in ecodesign generally requires of handling environmental information in the early design stages. Even if commonly encouraged in literature, recent research in the field of creativity show that exposure to models of the product can hinder creativity in the idea generation process. This papers discusses a case study where three experts in design are asked to rate the ideas previously generated by 56 students. These students had been originally delivered different types of environmental information, usually available in the early design stages. The perception of the experts regarding creativity, feasibility and originality of ideas were analyzed and conclusions are drawn for the sort of information that should be used in the early design stages.

Identificación de etapas y materiales de mayor impacto en el ciclo de vida del calzado

espanolLa repercusion de los impactos al medio ambiente ocasionado por la actividad humana, afecta a todas las actividades productivas y comerciales que sustentan el dia a dia. Los productos de consumo masivo como el calzado, provocan grandes impactos de acuerdo a los materiales y procesos usados para su fabricacion. Este trabajo de revision y analisis, tiene por objetivo conocer cuales son las etapas y materiales que provocan mayores impactos al medio ambiente, centrado en el calzado de piel. Los resultados demuestran que distintos autores llegan a resultados similares en cuanto a etapas y materiales de mayor impacto. Lo cual permite tomar medidas para revertir esta situacion, asi como canalizar los esfuerzos de investigacion en los procesos de curtido. EnglishThe environmental impacts caused by human activity, affects all productive and commercial activities that support the day to day. The products of massive consume such as footwear drive large impacts according to the materials and processes used for their manufacture. This paper present a literature review with the main aim to identify which are the phases and materials that cause greater environmental impacts to the environment, focusing on leather shoes. The results demonstrate that different authors reach similar results in terms of phases and high impact materials. The results permit change the current way of action and to focus the main efforts of research on tanning process.