Patrick Eagan

Linking Industrial Ecology with Business Strategy: Creating Value for Green Product Design

As organizations practice environmental design, some discover green design positively impacts business performance. This article demonstrates how an organization can employ existing design methods and tools with the Kano technique to craft an environmental product design strategy that enhances its business strategy. These tools expand the toolbox of the industrial ecologist and enable the link between green design and business improvement. The Kano technique was developed in the 1980s to facilitate design of innovative products. We also introduce terminology and concepts such as “voices of the environment,”“environmental knowledge management,”“environmental profile,” and “environmental product attribute” in order to bridge the gap between industrial ecology and business concerns. To demonstrate how an organization can find the synergy between business value and environmental value, this article describes three activities and their corresponding tools and exhibits their use with industry examples. First, we present techniques by which designers can identify and prioritize customers and stakeholders who voice both environmental and business concerns. Second, we describe how voice‐of‐the‐customer translation techniques can be used to efficiently collect and translate data from these customers and stakeholders into critical environmental product and service attributes. Third, we discuss how the Kano technique can be used to connect green design to business strategy by making visible the variety of stakeholder and customer perceptions of these critical environmental attributes. Examples then demonstrate how those perceptions suggest appropriate approaches for integrating the critical environmental attributes into product and business strategy. Finally, we provide examples based on work done with General Electric Medical Systems (GEMS) to illustrate the design of products that improve environmental performance while adding greater perceived value for numerous customers along material‐flow value chains.

Development of a facility-based environmental performance indicator related to sustainable development

Abstract Companies are increasingly interested in environmental performance indicators as a means of managing the degree to which environmental goals and objectives are implemented. Many companies have publicly endorsed goals associated with sustainable development, like the International Chamber of Commerces (ICC) principles for sustainable development. There is a need for metrics that facilitate implementation of these principles at the facility level and for research metrics that measure management improvement. An existing environmental self-assessment management tool called ESAP by the Global Environmental Management Initiative has been modified to measure a facilitys response to the ICCs 16 principles of sustainability. The new tools focus was shifted to a practical, facility based and easily applied assessment of progress towards sustainable development as represented by the ICCs 16 principles of sustainability. The new tool was called the Green Management Assessment Tool or GMAT, pilot tested and used in a research setting. Such tools have value to companies that are interested in the strategic goals of sustainable development and struggle with shifting corporate goals and objectives to manufacturing operations at the facility level.

Teaching the importance of culture and interdisciplinary education for sustainable development

Presents a case study of an interdisciplinary, graduate‐level seminar on the topic of international and business sector differences in approaches to sustainable development. The importance of the course is that it mixed culture, business and environmental sciences in a study of sustainability. The pedagogical structure of the course was designed to enable students to learn necessary skills for interdisciplinary, cross‐cultural, and cross‐business sector communication about environmental issues through their participation in the course. Discusses course design specifics and presents results of a student survey about the effectiveness of the course. Overall, students did find participation in the course helpful for improving their ability to communicate about environmental issues across disciplines, cultures, and industries. Students also highlighted several key cultural aspects that contribute to the different ways in which countries and businesses within them respond to environmental issues.

The utility of environmental impact information: a manufacturing case study

Abstract Cost information has been considered an important signal to facility decision-makers. The case study poses the question: Is environmental impact information (costs, energy impacts, chemical risk) sufficient, in and of itself, to prompt proactive change in facilities managers? The findings of the case study do not support the hypothesis that for manufacturing facilities that are already operating environmental systems meeting regulatory compliance, cost information alone will induce significant environmental change in the facility in the short term. Significant environmental change was not measured by direct observations of manufacturing processes. Paradoxically these findings are contradicted by managerial attitudes that cost information offers significant utility to business decision-makers. A number of operational, facility, customer and product factors may explain why the perceived cost of inaction was less than the cost of action. These factors should be tested further. Operationally, managers did not recognize the environmental implications of their job descriptions. Interpretive structure appears to be important. Priority setting is also an issue. Important facility characteristics that should be tested include the maturity of the program, and the complexity of the organization. Important product characteristics include the relative amounts of environmental impacts and costs associated with a product. Customer focus appears to be an important variable as well.

Striving to improve business success through increased environmental awareness and design for the environment education. Case study: AMP incorporated

Abstract Companies are beginning to incorporate environmental considerations into their business activities. Focusing on the environmental aspects of product or process, design activities hold a particular promise to generate business success. Progressive companies are developing new ways to teach their engineering communities about the rapidly evolving field of Design for the Environment (DFE). This paper describes an inter-institutional effort to enhance continuing engineering education in a company as well as how one company dealt with a new demand for environmental engineering education. This case study illustrates a working educational model and suggests emerging trends related to the incorporation of environmental criteria into business practice. AMP Incorporated, with the assistance of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, developed a short course to introduce its worldwide engineering community to DFE concepts and tools. The unique aspects of the project included the focus on quality improvement framework, developing business and engineering ownership and the adaptation of the educational program to AMPs facilities worldwide.

Creating business value by linking industrial ecology with business strategy and product design

This paper introduces an approach describing how an organization can use its own improvement methods and tools to develop a customer-driven environmental strategy that enhances its business strategy. The following steps were briefly described. First, key customers who express the environmental voice of the customer are identified and prioritized. Second, this environmental voice is collected and translated into product attributes that are critical to the environment. Third, the Kano technique is used to understand the different customer perceptions of these critical environmental attributes. Fourth, those customer perceptions suggest appropriate pathways for integrating the critical The anticipated result is improved environmental products that add greater perceived value to customers. The Kano technique ties an environmental attribute and how it is perceived to a business strategy thus providing a platform for environmental issues in the product realization process.

Developing an environmental education program case study: Motorola

Introducing new methods and design principles throughout large corporations is often difficult and can be time consuming. It is particularly challenging to incorporate new concepts or ideas into corporate culture. Motorolas corporate management however decided to do just that by using an educational vehicle to introduce environmental issues into the company. Motorola approached the Department of Engineering Professional Development (EPD) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Spring of 1992 with an intriguing proposal: to develop two new environmental courses, in a very short time frame, for their employees. Thus, two special courses, to highlight environmental concerns, were developed jointly by the University and Motorola. This unique training approach was used by Motorola in 1993 to affect corporate culture. This paper describes the educational challenges of course design and course content.<<ETX>>

A performance model for driving environmental improvement down the supply chain

Leading companies recognize that they cannot be completely proactive in their environmental performance unless they manage the environmental performance of their component suppliers. Supply chain management and environmental management offer considerable potential for strategic advantage and cost containment. However, assessing the environmental performance of supply chain environmental management requires simple and effective audit tools. Although supply chain audits have been implemented by some multinational firms, the effectiveness of these programs has not been assessed. This paper describes the benefits and challenges of environmental assessments of supply chains.

Using the objectives development process of an environmental management system as an opportunity to achieve design for the environment

This paper describes the means of achieving the integration of design-for-the-environment practices into an environmental management system (EMS) through the objectives-setting process of the EMS. Many progressive large firms, and even some smaller firms, have implemented EMSs to various degrees of formality within recent years. EMSs enable organizations to give increased focus, momentum and sustainability to their efforts to improve their environmental performance. Design for the Environment (DFE) has not yet significantly affected the products and processes at most firms. The authors propose that EMSs may provide the vehicle for firms to seriously examine the potential for DFE, and the structure to make it happen. The objectives-setting step within EMS deployment is specifically proposed as the process within which appropriate DFE practices can be identified and targeted for implementation.

Application principles for the use of DFE tools

Design for the environment (DFE) is a new and expanding area. Different kinds of design tools and check lists are being developed in many companies for different purposes. Major issues facing the design communities of some companies include: when do you tell your engineers to apply the range of DFE tools available to them and which tools should a designer use? Some companies can offer a number of DFE tools ranging from expensive and data intensive life cycle assessments to simple qualitative cost and ecosystem linkage tools. The problem can be a daunting one for companies with thousands of products, wide ranges of materials, design activities all over the world, shrinking design times, and potentially expensive and time consuming DFE tools. This paper will describe an approach which allows company managers to select products that would benefit from an environmental review and lead designers to know which tools to use.