Designing an optimal module-based product family and commonality for circularity

Kim, Jinju

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Description

Title

Designing an optimal module-based product family and commonality for circularity

Author(s)

Kim, Jinju

Issue Date

2021-11-23

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Kim, Harrison M.

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Kim, Harrison M.

Committee Member(s)

• Thurston, Deborah L.
• Wang, Pingfeng
• Kontou, Eleftheria

Department of Study

Industrial&Enterprise Sys Eng

Discipline

Industrial Engineering

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Circular product design
• Design for Recovery
• Product family design

Abstract

Rapid technological advances have accelerated the rate of global consumption and the pace of product disposal. Products are rapidly being disposed of or replaced even though they are functional or have sufficient residual value. A circular system has emerged as an alternative to solve the problems of the existing linear system (take-make-use-dispose). The circular system is a system that keeps resources in use as long as possible and then recovers and regenerates products and materials at the end-of-life stage through end-of-life product recovery strategies such as reuse, recycling, remanufacturing, and refurbishment. Through a circular system, companies can fulfill their social and ethical responsibilities for the environment, respond appropriately to environmental regulations, and obtain economic benefits, but many companies fail to implement the system properly due to a lack of understanding of the market and design strategies for recovery. Product design determines the product recovery strategy and its effectiveness, as well as the degree of environmental impact that can occur during product development, production, and use. Therefore, it is necessary to design in consideration of the entire product life cycle in the initial design stage. This dissertation focuses on improving product recovery through design decisions, such as product commonality, product module design, and product configuration design. This dissertation presents several methodologies of design for recovery that can help companies achieve a variety of goals, such as profitability and sustainability, as well as efficiency in production processes and protection of sensitive design and information. The methodologies can be used as product design support tools to help product designers identify appropriate product designs and find commonalities within a product family. The main contribution of this dissertation is the proposal of design methodologies that consider various issues between circular economy and the goals that companies need to achieve, which are rarely considered concurrently in previous studies. The purpose of these methodologies is to identify the obstacles that hinder companies from changing existing linear systems to the circular system and to suggest design strategies to overcome them. Each method provides product design alternatives to minimize design issues that may occur in the application of circular design, such as deterioration of product performance through commonality, intellectual property infringement, the inefficient recovery process, and changes in customer preferences while increasing the possibility of product recovery. This dissertation consists of three product family design methodologies for closing the loop of product family through remanufacturing, reuse, and recycling (Chapter 3, 4, and 6) and one empirical study on changes in customer preferences caused by COVID-19 (Chapter 5). The first methodology deals with the impact of intergenerational commonality. This study finds out through a quantitative model how different pricing strategies, production plans, and recovery costs are, based on the designs of a new generation with various degrees of generational commonality. The second methodology aims to identify the sustainable optimal product family architecture design while protecting intellectual property on sensitive parts or modules. The developed approach notably allows the selection of suitable and sustainable commonality candidates. The third methodology presents an integrated model to find product configuration design for remanufacturing and establish a harvest plan that determines the optimal disassembly operations and levels. Smartphones and printer-product families are used as an illustrative case study to explain and validate each methodology. Lastly, the empirical research includes the study of dynamic changes in customer responses for product features caused by the spread of COVID-19 through sentiment analysis based on online reviews. A case study is conducted using new and refurbished smartphone reviews to investigate the dynamic changes in customer sentiment before/during COVID-19. The importance of the result is shown by comparing it to the actual market data.

Graduation Semester

2021-12

Type of Resource

Thesis

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Copyright 2021 Jinju Kim

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