Page 411 - Design for Six Sigma a Roadmap for Product Development

378 Chapter Ten

average of the procedures of interest by the failure frequencies f i . This
is given by
k
1

k
overall
f i
f i i (10.8)
i 1 i 1

10.6 Design for Environmentality
In an effort to meet the world’s growing energy needs, the dependence on
fossil fuels has become a necessary endeavor. Since the first oil crisis in
1973 and the Gulf War in 1991, the world’s energy perspective has changed
significantly. Since then many countries have attempted to reduce their
dependence on oil by investigating alternative energy sources. More impor-
tantly, however, there has been an increased awareness concerning envi-
ronmental pollution and efforts to reduce the effects of fossil fuel emissions.
Global studies have concluded that increased fossil fuel consumption has
led to increased carbon dioxide release, which in turn causes atmospheric
heating. These theories, known as “the greenhouse theory” and “global
warming,” are both environmental concerns which have strongly affected
the design and manufacturing industries. For example, increased legisla-
tion concerning automotive emission levels has driven the automotive
industry to look for alternative fuel sources that would limit fossil fuel con-
sumption while focusing on energy savings and lowering environmental
impacts. Therefore, the motivation for environmentally friendly design is
coming from the recognition that sustainable economic growth can occur with-
out necessarily consuming the earth’s resources. This trend opens the door
for an evaluation of how the environment should be considered in design.
Design for Environmentality (DFE) (Myers 1984, Bussey 1998)
addresses environmental concerns as well as postproduction transport,
consumption, maintenance, and repair. The aim is to minimize envi-
ronmental impact, including strategic level of policy decision making
and design development. Since the introduction of DFE, one can view
the environment as a customer! Therefore, the definition of defective
design should encompass the designs that negatively impact the envi-
ronment. As such, DFE usually comes with added initial cost, causing
an increment of total life cost.

10.6.1 Technological and design issues
Most applied design technologies in the past have been developed by the
U.S. Department of Energy demonstration projects. These technologies
were often plagued with numerous kinds of errors. Common design
principles were applied, and many solutions were found only by testing.
Environmentally friendly designs are still relatively expensive. For the
most part, the technology gained since the early 1990s has proved itself