The National Science Foundation's (NSF) Tokyo Office periodically receives and disseminates reports on research developments in Japan that are related to the Foundation's mission. NSF-sponsored researchers currently working in Japan prepare many of these reports. These reports present information for use by NSF program managers and policy makers; they are not statements of NSF policy. .
Ms. Catherine Rose, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, Stanford, California, prepared the following report. Ms. Rose was a participant in the 1999 Summer Institute, sponsored by NSF/NIH/USDA in the U.S. and the Science and Technology Agency and the Japan Science and Technology Corporation in Japan. Dr. Kazuo Mori of the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, MITI/AIST, hosted Ms. Rose. Ms. Rose can be reached via email at: rose@cdr.stanford.edu
The purpose of Design for Manufacturing (DFM) methodologies is
to bring downstream knowledge of the product (manufacturing, distribution,
recycling, etc.) into the design stage so that engineers can optimize
not just the technology, but all the life cycle processes associated
with the product. I am most interested in the area of DFM that
deals with the environmental aspects of the design of products.
Within the field of Design for Environment, my research focuses
on how product characteristics relate to end-of-life strategies.
My overall research focus is on the intersection of industry, government and environment as it relates to electronic product development. My research focus during the two months in Japan was end-of-life treatment of products. During the course of my stay, I was able to visit several companies, research labs and universities. Working at MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry), the governmental body that has a central role in policy development and technological research, gave me an opportunity to understand better the Japanese system. My specific research related to the following three areas:
1. Ecodesign Focus based on Life Cycle Perspective
Ecodesign improvements must be based on life cycle perspectives. Within product sectors, various companies are targeting different ecodesign improvement areas. Very few companies are focusing on ecodesign improvements in all phases of the life cycle. With the recent impetus on take back and end of life, many companies are researching methods to improve recyclability of their products. Unfortunately, they often forsake other areas of ecodesign improvements. Products are divided into product sector artificially by government regulations, industry standards and consumer preferences rather than by product characteristics.
2. Improvement in Efficiency of Recycling Facility
Planning collection of retired products is necessary to increase profitability of recycling efforts. The efficiency of product end-of-life treatment facilities are influenced by the following decision areas:
The collection issues present a great deal of difficulty because retired products originate from multiple origins and head to a single destination. The high level of difficulty is due to the uncertainty involved in the process ranging from the quantity of products to their delivery logistics to the placement of collection centers. The biggest challenge is the level of uncertainty of the quality and quantity of products collected.
Some basic questions to answer before in depth analysis is possible are:
There are opportunities for basic improvements to many existing recycling facilities with cursory understanding of Industrial Engineering topics. However, without a clear overall strategy and outlook, any improvements will be small. To achieve improvements necessary for sustainable development, clear goals should be established recognizing dynamic forces such as pending legislation, changing technology and changing consumer preferences.
3. Differences between Assembly and Disassembly
There are big differences in assembly based the reason the product is being assembled or when the product is being assembled. Assembly in a factory is easy compared to assembly after servicing. Assembly in the factory is optimized for the entire product, whereas service or refurbishment is based on optimized to remove a part and replace with new part. The accessibility of the part is different in original assembly. During assembly, factories use very specialized tools, equipment, and fixtures-not usually available in the general market. Optimum path to remove one part from assembled product is more difficult that the original assembly.
Disassembly may be defined as a systematic method of separating a product into its constituent parts, components, subassemblies or other groupings. Disassembly may be partial (the product is not fully disassembled) or complete (product is fully disassembled). Even though approaching disassembly may sound reasonable, for complex products, the operational characteristics of disassembly and assembly are quite different.
Plant Trips
The Japan Railways (JR) East Ohi Workshop provides maintenance and service to 5000 rail cars per year. Each train must be disassembled into subcomponents. The wheels and motor are removed and examined extensively on separate refurbishing lines. Both because of differences in product lines and the time needed to perform activities, maintenance scheduling is very complex. While dedicated maintenance lines for each product line proves successful, lack of space hinders this prospect.
Sony has the recycling and manufacturing activities housed at the same location and parts recovered from the recycling facility are assembled into new products. There is also a home appliances recycling test facility, a joint project among Hitachi, Panasonic, Sony, Mitsubishi, and Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), that focuses on demonstrations of recycling processes for refrigerators, air conditioners, televisions, and washing machines. The Association of Electrical Home Appliances (AEHA) recycling plant ended its demonstration operation this March. The engineers and researchers who were working at that plant during the demonstration period have gone back to their companies to develop their own commercial plants.
The research I completed in Japan enabled me to gain better perspective on my doctoral research project in the United States, which focuses on product characteristics. It is more obvious to me now that the local policy and regulatory climate, as well the research culture, shape the types of questions that are asked and the way in which they are answered, especially relating to fields which depend on value judgements. In the future, my dissertation will focus on information gained from my summer for in depth comparison of product end-of-life strategies in different regions of the world, including the United States, Europe and Japan.
I was able to learn a lot from the research that MITI is doing on "Inverse Manufacturing." I believe that these companies also benefited from learning about the research we are doing at Stanford. The 1999 Summer Institute in Japan sponsored this work. I am grateful to the many company representatives, researchers, and other individuals who took the time to meet with me. I would especially like to thank my host colleagues, Dr. Kazuo Mori, Nozumu Mishima, and Dr. Keijiro Masui and associates, for arranging the company visits and sponsoring my work at MEL.