Sustainable design and manufacturing is crucial to achieving sustainability, closed-loop life cycle and circular economy.

Sustainability has been widely defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

Sustainable products are products that provide environmental, societal and economic benefits while protecting social health and welfare and maintaining the environment over their full life cycle from raw material extraction, and use, to eventual disposal and reuse.

Currently, new products are developed and manufactured, and are also disposed of, at an alarming fast rate. There is increasing concerns of over-consumption of natural resources, leading to their depletion, accumulation of waste, growing landfills, and their related adverse environmental impacts. There are  concerns use of hazardous materials in products that adversely affect both humans and the environmental at large.

Sustainable product design and manufacture entails designing products with improvements in each stage, enhancements to its life-cycle value, while the products still satisfy design functionality along with provisions for manufacturability, assembly requirements, reliability, safety, serviceability and environmental compliance; end-of-life (EOL) options are also well thought out.

 

Updated March 2022, Prof S K Ong