Sustainable Design Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Sustainable Design - Essay Example The balancing of these aspects in the new product development design is the outlook of 'Sustainable product development and design'. "To create sustainable products and services that increase stakeholders' 'quality of life', whilst at the same time achieving major reductions in resource and energy use, will require a significant emphasis on stimulating new ideas through higher levels of creativity and innovation"- e generation Business Learning Centre. Thus it becomes evident that creating new designs may need increased creativity as well as the fullest involvement form the varied strata of people, if new solutions and designs are to be generated which will substantiate the Sustainable Product Design Development. In general 'sustainable development' is to be seen as a basic human concept dealing with the kind of environment the people would like to live in. Sustainable development is a strong image but a provocative one. The best place to get good suggestions on the sustained development is the 'customers'. Many companies have forgotten to talk to customers but have focused inwardly on the technological and improvements required for, primarily eco-design using less energy and less components etc. In many cases such suggestions may not be the right solution but nevertheless, it can be demonstrated that new ideas can reach marketplace if the conditions are right." Quite understandably, the majority of people do not understand the academic concept of sustainable development. Indeed, research for the Department of Environment in the UK, indicated that sustainable development was seen as a government construct to keep people out of environmental issues" Martin Charter and Anne Chick (1997). Keepi ng this context in view, this paper attempts to cover an overview of creation of new sustainable product designs to manufacture products, services and product service systems in so far they address economical, social and environmental issues. This paper also aims to have a re-look in to the past, study the present and suggest possible future solutions to the impact of product design on these issues. 2.0 SUSTAINABLE PRODUCT DESIGN-ECONOMICAL ISSUES As we described at the outset, good design and good business go hand-in-hand. The best challenge in business that a firm may face is to arrive at an exact product design even at the first instance so that the rushing to be first to the market will not result in design flaws and the resultant poor performance of the product. This may totally negate any advantage resulting to the firm because of its efficient and quicker 'time to market'. "An effective design process: Matches product or service characteristics with customer requirements Ensures that customer requirements are met in the simplest and less costly manner Reduces the time required to design a new product or service and Minimize the revisions necessary to make a design workable." - (Roberta S. Russell & Bernard W. Taylor III 2003) All the above objectives flow only in one direction; that is to maximize the benefit of the value design. All forces in an organization work in cognition to align themselves with the common aim of achieving market share, sales volume, brand reputation, customer loyalty, profit margin and channel growth and so on. A careful analysis of these