CHAPTER 16
DESIGN FOR PRODUCIBILITY,
DISPOSABILITY, AND SUSTAINABILITY
1) To bring a system into being is to achieve a high degree of organization and order; to cease
being is to return a system to a state of disorganization and disorder, as in the concept of
entropy. The degree of order exhibited by an engineered system is a remarkable
manifestation of system design; design that is largely responsible for the realized outcome
of producibility and disposability, as well as all other design dependent parameters.
129
producing enterprise. As a design-dependent parameter, however, disposability is one more
factor inherent in the design that should be considered during the early phases of design.
11) Incentives that make disposability somewhat of an internality are: (a) the corporate image
and esteem among stakeholders, (b) the good will generated by care directed to the disposal
12) Environmental quality is a general term that refers to a “level of goodness” as it applies to
the overall environment in which humans live. It is a relative term and can be measured on
13) Within the context of the eco-design of products and processes, the ECDM approach seeks
to discover product innovations that will result in reducing harmful environmental impacts
at any or all stages of the life cycle, while satisfying cost and performance as well as quality
objectives. For ECDM to be implemented and integrated effectively into the eco-product
development process, several key elements are required throughout the life-cycle stages:
14) A part of functional analysis includes the combining and grouping of similar functions into
15) Demanufacturing pertains to the design of an item so that it can be easily and economically
disassembled (taken apart) or broken down to the level required such that like materials and
16) Goals for the elimination of waste depend upon where one is in the life cycle. For new
systems under development, an objective is to design a product where most of its content
17) If a product is designed to be producible, it should be easy to assemble and/or disassemble
19) In the production of an item or batch, a series of operations is required. An estimate
establishes the anticipated time and cost associated with the process. As these steps are
repeated in the production of additional units of the same item (or in the provision of like
service activities), learning takes place and the time and cost factors usually become less
than experienced initially. Further, each time that the process is repeated improvement will
be obtained until a leveling off occurs where little additional improvement is realized. The
plot of such progress displays an empirical learning curve. Theoretical learning “models”
for a range of parameters exist. Refer to Figure 16.3 (page 551) for one such model.
22) Referring to Figure 2.2 (page 30), the four life cycles represent the activities that must be
addressed when making plans pertaining to system design and development, production,