Set Based Engineering and Eco-efficient design selection at conceptual phase of product design and development process

Growing concerns regarding the environmental impact of industrial activities, coupled with consumer demands for environmentally sound products, have forced manufacturers to scrutinize carefully the environmental friendliness and economical prosperity of their products during the design process; a domain called eco-efficient product design. To design an eco-efficient product, related requirements must be considered during the conceptual design phase, where the cost of incorporating changes is relatively low, and different feasible concepts of the product should be evaluated as such. However, at this early design stage, life cycle data and information are subject to severe uncertainties that make the selection of the most favourable eco-efficient product concept arbitrary based on incomplete information and knowledge. In this paper it is rationalised Set Based Engineering (SBE), Toyota way of conceptual product design, to be used early in a design process, premising elimination of inferior designs and subsequently delaying the selection of the best eco-efficient design till sufficient information and knowledge being acquired to do so.