Product Value Modeling of Time Varying Performance Characteristics
 
 

Srikanth Vadrevu | MS | 1994

Over the last few decades the volume of industrial activities undertaken has been constantly increasing. As the people around the world are striving to increase their standards of living, their consumption of resources have also increased. However, the supply of the resources is not able to match the ever increasing demands on the resources. Now the questions remains as to how far can we further use these limited resources?

The fast depleting energy resources and the increasing damage, already being caused, to the environment is forcing the government and the industry to look for technologies that can enhance long term sustainability of the environment. It is being recognized that environmental contamination is one of the horrendous curses that is threatening the progress of technological development. As a result, government and industry are striving to understand the various implications of legislatorial regulations towards environmental compliance.

Also, the global marketplace is forcing the manufacturers to critically examine the existing paradigms and identify new strategies in order to remain competitive. Additionally, environmental regulations around the world are becoming ever-stricter, and forecasts indicate that manufacturers that continue to ignore the environment may be placing themselves in financial jeopardy. Therefore, the environment is beginning to exert additional pressure that will have a considerable influence on the business strategies.

In the present research, an Environmentally Concious Design and Manufacturing (ECDM) strategy is proposed that will enhance the competitive position of the manufacturer, apart from giving an environment friendally image. An ECDM strategy is described in which used products are demanufactured for potential reuse or remanufacture. The essential components and the required characteristics of such a strategy are described in this thesis work. A stepwise procedure is presented that can be used to design and manufacture environmentally concious and competitive products.

The twin aspects of customer satisfaction and waste management are addressed in the ECDM strategy by considering the product quality during the entire life cycle of the product. The ECDM strategy recognizes "product quality" and environmental quality" as a part of quality. The current objectives of statistical process control are to establish process mean at the design target value and to decrease process variability. The effect of variation on the overall product performance can indicate the amount of waste generated in the process.

Quantitative models that characterize the product quality during the entire life cycle of the product are presented in this chapter. It is observed that a critical factor for the success of the ECDM strategy is that significant value still reside at the end of its useful life. Models for cumulative loss function and product value over the life of the product are developed on the relationship between time varying quality characteristic and associated benefits and losses.

The models are supported by illustrative examples. Experiments conducted on the Toner Cartridges and computer simulations provide illustrative support to the developed models. The results of the experiments and simulations provide an insight towards the applicability of such quality characterization models in an ECDM system.

If you have any comments or suggestions please e-mail jwsuther@mtu.edu.