Development of an expert system to aid engineers in the selection of design for environment methods and tools

Despite the importance of the matter and significant research efforts extended, adoption of the sustainability tools and methods to design and produce more sustainable products is slower than desired. This has been attributed to the extensive and complex nature of the relevant knowledge landscape, which also makes it harder on non-expert engineers to select appropriate tools. As a response to this problem, a sustainability tool and method adviser (GREENESYS) is developed. In the paper, we provide the rationale, methodology, and application steps of this expert system development along with an evaluation of it. Our results point to the efficiency and effectiveness contribution of this expert system in design settings, where the designer answers a few simple questions about the design task and GREENESYS recommends appropriate sustainability tools and methods. GREENESYS can also be used as an educational tool by disclosing the selection process; and as an indicator to identify design tasks that have not been addressed by sustainability researchers. 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.