Week 6

For this week’s lesson we learnt about 2 concepts:

Product design considerations

6 Stages of Product Life Cycle

What is a life cycle?

It is an analysis to examine environmental impacts that are related to all the stages of the product’s life from first stage to the last stage. Through activity 2 done together in the online class.

Activity 2:

1. Raw materials

So our raw material is crude oil which is collected from oil fields and will then be refined distilled into naphtha

2. Manufacturing & Production

Naphtha is then further processed into monomer which is combined with a catalyst to create polymer fluff. The polymer fluff is then fed into an extruder to be injection molded into the tea maker parts and is assembled into the tea maker.

3. Packaging

The assembled tea maker is packaged into cardboard boxes with Styrofoam pellets.

4. Distribution

Transportation such as ships and trucks are transported from China to Singapore. Using Singpost delivery lorries and trucks will transport the product to the customers.

5. Use

For users that will use the tear maker to make tea.

6. Disposal

Product will be disposed in a landfill

7. Recycle

Product can then be sieved out for recycling. Cradle to cradle design

In this section of the lesson, we learnt that the product life cycle is not a circle and it is falls under the cradle-to-grave system. A cradle-to-grave product system minimizes the negative impact on the environment mostly by means of reducing, reusing and recycling. However, it is not 100% effective instead, there is a better method to product design. And that is cradle-to-cradle design. It is a biomimetic approach to the design of products and systems that emulates nature's processes. It is not simply reducing, reusing and recycling to minimize wastes. It seeks to eliminate the very concept of waste by design.

Design principles

1) Nutrients to nutrients

Process whereby it is able to break down and provide minerals and nutrients to the environment.

2) Use of renewable energies

3) Celebrating diversity

Giving extra material to neighbours, minimizing the waste

1. Stressing the importance of the ‘Design’ stage because a product with a proper design for sustainable development can go a long way. Other than meeting customer needs, one must also consider the environmental and societal impacts.

2. Raw material selection is important as it determines the amount of wastes churned out during the manufacturing processes. The wastes have an impact on the environment.

3. The composition of the product determines how easy the product can be ‘taken apart’ for recycling purposes. The product composition also determines how biodegradable the product is if it is disposed.

4. In order to maximize the use of raw materials (and reduce costs), ‘zero’ waste is ideal. For example, when cutting a piece of cardboard to build a ‘quick-and-dirty’ prototype, we try to fit various parts (in different shapes and sizes) onto the cardboard, much like fitting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, to maximize the use of the cardboard. This minimizes scraps that are generated.

5. Products designed with modular components mean that a faulty component of the product can be easily replaced so that the whole product does not have to be thrown away. For example, the battery of a laptop.

Activity 3:

We used celebrating diversity and renewable energy to incorporate cradle to cradle design into our life cycle.

Celebrating Diversity - sharing unwanted products of the crude oil to neighboring companies.

Renewable Energy - using electric powered vehicles instead of petrol/diesel.

Done by

Ted Chan Sheng