Sustainability Analysing and Comparing Tool in Design for Manufacturing

Nowadays sustainable design is a mandatory requirement in the product development pro-cess. For this reason, design methodologies are addressed to establish a close relationship between environmental, social and economic impact indicators and product features from early design stages, especially in those features related to its manufacturing. In this thesis, the design for manufacturing and assembly — DFMA methodology shall be investigated to sheet metal devices, integrating functional and component relationships to minimize particu-lar sustainability indicators such as energy consumption, carbon footprint, number of parts, required amount of material, assembly time and manufacturing costs. You shall be open to discuss with suppliers their energy consumption and compare various manufacturing pro-cess possibilities based on their carbon footprint and other sustainability indicators. The aim of this thesis is to support the design engineer with a guideline of how to be able to develop not only cost efficient concepts but in the same time be able to reduce the carbon footprint and other sustainability indicators of their product.