Towards a design-to-sustainability platform based on functional representations and simplified geometric layouts

Sustainability is becoming one of the main drivers of the modern product and system design. However,
sustainability assessments are usually carried out at the end of the design process to check the
validity of the decisions already taken. As a consequence, when targets are not achieved, numerous
time-consuming iteration loops are necessary to optimize the initial solution. The paper merges
functional-based and design-to-cost approaches to propose a CAD-based platform able to assess
product lifecycle costs and impacts from the earliest design stages by configuring and assessing feasible
design solutions. It considers both economic expenses and environmental impacts during all
phases of product lifecycle on the basis of the company knowledge.