Modeling, Simulation and Analysis for Sustainable Product Development

Simulation plays a critical role in the design of products, materials and manufacturing processes. Increasingly, simulation is replacing physical tests to ensure product reliability and quality thereby facilitating steady reductions in design cycles. However, with the current global environmental crisis, there are gaps in the simulation tools used by industry to provide reliable results from which effective and equitable decisions can be made regarding environmental impacts at different stages of product realization and life cycle. For sustainable manufacturing planning, enhanced modeling techniques are needed to understand and predict the sustainability aspects through design and manufacturing where technologies can be applied to transform materials with reduced energy consumption, reduced emissions, reduced generation of waste products, and reduced use of non renewable or toxic materials. In this paper, a holistic and systems approach to Sustainable Manufacturing Planning and Simulation (SMPS) is identified and presented in an effort to bridge the gaps in the simulation tools to incorporate aspects pertaining to sustainability across the product lifecycle. For SMPS framework we consider building upon the previously developed Systems Integration of Manufacturing Applications (SIMA) project at NIST. Based on a case study and discussions we aim to address the usefulness of research towards having a simulation reference framework, and corresponding information models to facilitate effective decision making using simulation at different phases of product lifecycle. In the course of the paper we also identify and propose potential areas of future research in this direction.