Kun-Mo Lee

A Study on Comparison of Different PSS Concepts Based on Value Creation Efficiency

Proper combinations of products and services are recognized to the keys in establishing sustainable society. In this paper, we try to analyze efficiency to offer value to customers under a certain payment. As a case study we choose water purifier and compare different business options in the water purifier sales. We applied our value quantification method based on weighting of different functional requirements, and integral of value throughout the lifecycle. The paper tries to clarify the suitable combination of product and service that is effective in enhancing the value creation efficiency of business, in the aspect of cost-efficiency and eco-efficiency.

ISO standards on environmental labels and declarations and its implications on the market

Economic instruments such as extended producer responsibility (EPR) and green purchasing network (GPN) are conducive to environmentally sound and sustainable development in our society. The implementation of EPR and GPN would require tools such as environmental labels and declarations (EL). EL has been used to encourage the demand for and supply of those products that cause less stress on the environment, thereby stimulating the potential for market-driven continuous environmental improvement. However, EL may act as potential trade barriers. Harmonization of EL by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) results in EL standards termed the ISO 14020 series. The contents of the ISO 14020 series and its implications on the market are discussed.

A Study on Total Performance Analysis of Service Oriented Eco-Businesses

Eco-efficiency (DeSimone and Popoff in Eco-efficiency—the business link to sustainable development, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1997) has gained more and more attention these days. It is said that hopeful direction in industries to increase the eco-efficiency is de-materialization. In product development, the type of products that are suitably combined with service are often called product service system (PSS; Sakao and Shimomura in J Clean Prod 15(6):590–604, 2007). Designing the PSS efficiently will be a key issue in enhancing the eco-efficiency in many industries. The authors have gathered many examples of businesses that would increase sustainability (so-called eco-business) and extracted business rules (Kondoh and Mishima in Proceedings of ASME IDETC/CIE 2009, September 2009, CA, USA, DETC2009-86961; Kondoh et al. in Int J Prod Dev 6(3/4):334–352, 2008) from the examples. It was found that many PSS are included in the gathered examples. In this paper, we focus on PSS type businesses and try to analyze eco-efficiency of an example based on our evaluation method called total performance analysis (TPA) (Kondoh et al. in Int J Prod Dev 6(3/4):334–352, 2008; Kondoh et al. in Int J Autom Technol 3(1):56–62, 2009). And then, the paper tries to clarify the suitable combination of product and service is effective in enhancing the efficiency of the business. And it also concludes that the proposed evaluation method; TPA is helpful in analyzing the eco-efficiency of PSS.

Development of ecodesign method for electronics products

Ecodesign aims at integrating key environmental aspects of a product in early stage of the product design. Major issues in ecodesign are identifying key environmental aspects of a product, type of environmental information should be provided for the generation of ecodesign ideas and how to evaluate ecodesign ideas. The article presents the development of ecodesign method for electronic products. Environmental benchmarking and checklist methods were used for the environmental assessment of a product. A case study using mobile phone indicates that the proposed method can be applicable to the integration of environmental aspects to the design and development of a product.

Calculation of the Eco-Design Index for Components of the Multi-function Printer

Conventional eco-design has been implemented based only on the environmental aspects of a product. Key components of a product identified from the analysis of the environmental aspects have been the target for improvement in the conventional eco-design. The use of eco-design index (EDI) considering both the environmental and economic aspects, and utility value (UV) of a product can be envisaged as an alternative way of implementing and assessing the eco-design. The objective of this study was to propose the logic of the EDI and apply it to the components for performing printing function of the multi-function printer. The EDI was formulated by quantifying the UV, life cycle environmental impact (LCE) and life cycle cost (LCC) of the components of a product, here components of the printer. Of the eight components investigated, roller was identified as the best performing consumable in both the environmental and economic aspects. However, its UV was the lowest among the eight. The EDI of the roller was mere 4 in ranking out of the eight. Transfer belt ranked 8 and 5 in the environmental and economic aspects, respectively, while 2 in the utility value with its EDI ranked 3. This indicates that not only the environmental aspects but also economic and utility value aspects should be considered when identifying the key components for improvement in the eco-design.

A Proposal on a Method for Multi-Criteria Decision-Making of Eco-Business Options

Eco-businesses that satisfy environmental consciousness and high quality of life simultaneously can be the keys to establish a sustainable society. However, since eco-businesses have at least 2 criteria, environmental and economical aspects, it is sometimes difficult to overcome the trade-offs and determine a proper business strategy. In this paper, a method proposed by the authors and named Total Performance Analysis (TPA) is applied to evaluate business options. Although there is a conflict between 2 well-known indexes, ‘eco-efficiency’ and ‘value per cost,’ the paper shows the newly proposed index can adjust the conflict through the case study. The paper tries to conclude that the TPA is a suitable method for decision-making of eco-business under multi-criteria, not only because it can evaluate environmental and economical aspects both, but also because it can model rise and fall of products’ values throughout life cycles. Such feature of the TPA is important to simulate the effects of business options properly combined with products.

Comparison of the eco-efficiency of the rental and sales business types of receipt printer

The objective of this paper is to compare the rental business type with the sales business type from the economic and environmental performance perspectives. Environmental performance was assessed by life cycle assessment (LCA), while economic performance by life cycle cost (LCC) analysis including product cost and rental cost. Eco-efficiency was calculated using the LCA and LCC results. Receipt printer was chosen as the product for comparison. Both rental business and sales business type receipt printer exhibited similar economic performance; Ecoefficiency of the rental business type is higher than that of the sales business type in the case of receipt printer.

Consideration of Invigorating Potential Consumers of The Personal Computer Rental Business

Rental business is a new business paradigm that generates revenue by charging fee to the consumers for the use of the product. PC rental business is in its infancy and relatively new to the PC industry.