An investigation into sustainable product conceptualization using a design knowledge hierarchy and Hopfield network

In recent years, there has been a paradigm shift on providing design services from manufacturing/marketing to sustainability. Although a number of studies have been conducted on sustainable issues in many aspects, impacts such as multidisciplinary integration and product life-cycle consideration have not been thoroughly investigated. Therefore, it is worthwhile to investigate into the integration of functional, marketing, and commercial perspectives with product sustainability in the early stage of product conceptualization. In this study, a sustainable product conceptualization system (SPCS) is proposed. The product platform of a specific product is first generated by designers or domain experts using general sorting, a requirement acquisition technique, and design knowledge hierarchy (DKH), a knowledge representation structure. Based on the product platform, initial design options can be obtained using morphological configuration, i.e., combining different part options. Subsequently, the Hopfield network is used to narrow down initial design space based on initial design criteria solicited by domain experts. To select the preferred design options for the purpose of sustainable product conceptualization, the sustainability-cost pairs can be obtained based on the rated sustainability and cost criteria solicited using repertory grids by domain experts. Consequently, the results are discussed on the coordination between product sustainability degree and cost efficiency. A case study on cellular-phone design is conducted for system illustration.