Engineering Knowledge for target-driven sustainable product development

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Rainer Stark
• Subject Area: Engineering Design, Machine Elements, Product Development
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 523870276

The proposed project aims to develop a digital tool to support engineers in their decisions on how to successfully integrate strategic sustainability goals into the design and execution phases. Currently, companies have to make considerable efforts to find suitable methods and tools for their sustainability challenges and goals. Engineers in particular are not sufficiently supported in integrating strategic sustainability goals into the product development and design process. The Engineering Knowledge is a method to be implemented in a digital tool. It includes four core functionalities to achieve the presented goal: 1. recording companies' sustainability goals and preparing them through quantifiable indicators. 2. linking target indicators with product characteristics in the form of a Product Integrated Sustainability Model (PRISMo) based on the LCA methodology 3. interface for sustainability-related product data from the companies' data stock to the PRISMo 4. user interface for the engineer to control and adapt data processing and extract information to support design decisions. To build the decision support capability of Engineering Knowledge, two demonstrators are used. One is a PET bottle, acting as a simple product of manageable size and complexity, and the other is a pump system to evaluate the scalability of Engineering Knowledge.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants