The elaboration process - an approach for sustainable product development: a case study

摘要

Environmentally conscious product development, eco-design or design for environment is the methodology trying to introduce environmental requirements into product design. The first step of this process is the gathering of customer requirements for a structured product development procedure, such as quality function deployment (QFD). The problem is that environmental requirements are usually unspoken by the customers. This paper describes a methodology for uncovering such requirements by using environmental default questions in an elaboration process. This leads to an increased customer environmental awareness, and it generates a comprehensive list of requirements suitable for use in a subsequent QFD process. The effects of the elaboration process are demonstrated in one case study.