This paper presents an approach to identify opportunities to develop sustainable Product Service Systems (PSS) involving Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of the research is to build understanding of how the integration of product and service design and the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can contribute to identify opportunities to develop sustainable PSS involving SMEs. In order to develop the approach, research with 16 Colombian Manufacturing SMEs was carried out. A reference model and four generic types of PSS according to the relationships between product and service design and ICT are used to analyse the data. Finally, the possibility of extending the approach into a general framework to work with other industries is discussed. Full article

The discarded fruit and vegetable waste from the consumer and retailer sectors provide a reliable source for ethanol production. In this paper, an ethanol distillation system has been developed to remove the water contents from the original wash that contains only around 15% of the ethanol. The system has an ethanol production capacity of over 100,000 liters per day. It includes an ethanol condenser, a wash pre-heater, a main exhaust heat exchanger as well as a fractionating column. One unique characteristic of this system is that it utilizes the waste heat rejected from a power plant to vaporize the ethanol, thus it saves a significant amount of energy and at the same time reduces the pollution to the environment. Full article

Micro-manufacturing emerged in the last years as a new engineering area with the potential of increasing peoples’ quality of life through the production of innovative micro-devices to be used, for example, in the biomedical, micro-electronics or telecommunication sectors. The possibility to decrease the energy consumption makes the micro-manufacturing extremely appealing in terms of environmental protection. However, despite this common belief that the micro-scale implies a higher sustainability compared to traditional manufacturing processes, recent research shows that some factors can make micro-manufacturing processes not as sustainable as expected. In particular, the use of rare raw materials and the need of higher purity of processes, to preserve product quality and manufacturing equipment, can be a source for additional environmental burden and process costs. Consequently, research is needed to optimize micro-manufacturing processes in order to guarantee the minimum consumption of raw materials, consumables and energy. In this paper, the experimental results obtained by the micro-electrical discharge machining (micro-EDM) of micro-channels made on Ni–Cr–Mo steel is reported. The aim of such investigation is to shed a light on the relation and dependence between the material removal process, identified in the evaluation of material removal rate (MRR) and tool wear ratio (TWR), and some of the most important technological parameters (i.e., open voltage, discharge current, pulse width and frequency), in order to experimentally quantify the material waste produced and optimize the technological process in order to decrease it. Full article

The development of a new parallel mechanism based on simulation driven design is a rapid approach to discover the unique features or advantages of a conceptual model. In this research, one novel parallel mechanism which can generate three degrees-of-freedom translations is proposed. The kinematic model and Jacobian matrix is derived. The workspace generation and mapping is investigated based on simplified boundary searching method. The particle swarm algorithm is applied to search for the optimal volume of workspace. Full article

The worldwide population increase and subsequent surge in energy demand leads electricity producers to increase supply in an attempt to generate larger profit margins. However, with Global Climate Change becoming a greater focus in engineering, it is critical for energy to be converted in as environmentally benign a way as possible. There are different sustainable methods to meet the energy demand. However, the focus of this research is in the area of Waste Heat Recovery. The waste heat stored in the exiting condenser cooling water is delivered to the air flow through a water-air cross flow heat exchanger. A converging thermal chimney structure is then applied to increase the velocity of the airflow. The accelerated air can be used to turn on the turbine-generator installed on the top the thermal chimney so that electricity can be generated. This system is effective in generating electricity from otherwise wasted heat. Full article

A system paradigm is an abstract representation of system; it includes system architecture used to determine the types and numbers of components and their relations in the system. The design of system paradigm relies on customers’ requirements and the characteristics of the manufacturing environment. Many system paradigms and design guidelines have been proposed for a variety of customers’ needs including functions, cost, quality, personalization, and lead time of products. However, the consideration of sustainability becomes essential to today’s manufacturing systems; a new challenge is how to evolve existing paradigms to accommodate the requirements of sustainability. In contrast to ample research activities on system paradigms in past decades, recent studies on system paradigms have been restricted, partially due to unclear research directions. Limited works can be found on conceiving new manufacturing system paradigms from the perspective of sustainability; most of the related literature concerns the new requirements of sustainability. The objectives of this work are (i) to examine the requirements of manufacturing systems in a wider scope; (ii) to revisit existing paradigms to clarify their limitations and bottlenecks; and eventually (iii) to identify some research directions, which will lead to a solution of sustainable manufacturing. To achieve these objectives, firstly, a brief description of today’s manufacturing environment is provided. Secondly, the requirements of sustainability are discussed, and the relevant researches on system sustainability are surveyed. Thirdly, the reconfigurable system paradigm is focused, and the gaps between a reconfigurable manufacturing system and a sustainable manufacturing system are discussed. Finally, the future endeavors towards to the next-generation manufacturing system paradigms are discussed. Full article

An investigation is reported on the importance of integrating sustainability with manufacturing and design, along with other objectives such as function, competitiveness, profitability and productivity. The need of utilizing appropriate tools like design for environment, life cycle assessment and other environmentally sound practices that are cognizant of the entire life cycle of a process or product is highlighted. It is likely that sustainability and environmental stewardship will be increasingly important considerations in manufacturing and design in the future and are likely to influence the main priorities for advancing manufacturing operations and technologies. Designers and manufacturing decision makers who adopt a sustainability focus and establish a sustainability culture within companies are more likely to be successful in enhancing design and manufacturing. It is concluded that more extensive research and collaboration is needed to improve understanding of sustainability in manufacturing and design, and to enhance technology transfer and applications of sustainability. Full article