Developing an Integrated Framework to Guide the Ecological Design of Electrical and Electronic Equipment

There
is growing concern about the environmental issues of electrical
and electronic equipment (EEE). Accordingly, ecological design is
promoted as a solution to mitigate environmental impacts at the design
stage. However, there is no effective tool to generate ecological
design schemes while considering the requirements of regulation and
customers, the technical feasibility of the scheme, and the trade-off
between environmental impacts and costs. This study developed a framework
that integrates knowledge graphs, quality function deployment, and
a Pareto-optimal algorithm to guide the ecological design of EEE,
achieving market demand evaluation, technical feasibility analysis,
and optimal design scheme generation. It was used to conduct contactor
ecological design for a leading EEE manufacturer. Key findings include
the following: (1) 25 ecological design indicators across 5 categories
were identified from 230 documents covering 13 product types, 25 segments,
and 3 regions; (2) for a contactor used in the Chinese building segment,
12 indicators were identified from 28 documents, with “recycled
material”, “lead-free”, and “energy consumption”
as design focuses; (3) the ecological design scheme included 18 improvements
across 8 core parts, primarily through material replacement; and (4)
the optimal design scheme reduced carbon emissions by 70%, fossil
resource depletion by 68%, and abiotic resource depletion by 24% and
saved 7% in cost. This study enhances the EEE ecological design process,
offering a comprehensive and intelligent solution for sustainable
product development.