Платформа за идентификација на материјали при дизајнирање еколошки прифатливи производи

Abstract

Whether it’s because of environmental consciousness or implied government regulations, companies today mainly focus on the so-called Design for Environment (DfE) strategies developed through collaboration between researchers and academic communities in order to produce environmentally friendly products. The industrial designer creates a product by balancing between consumers’ needs and manufacturers’ requirements, in which selecting the most suitable material for that particular product is an inherent task of the designer’s process. However, the unfamiliarity of attributes of recently discovered environmentally friendly materials (EFM) presents a challenge to designers in the material selection process. Due to the need of tool for identifying and classifying the materials, this thesis focuses on the role of the industrial designer within the scope of EFM selection. The material information platform (MIP) which is proposed aims to emulate the human decision-making process, in this case, the decision-making process for product driven design (PDD) and its evolution throughout the material selection process, focused on EFM. For this purpose, a platform is conducted to support a five-phase PDD materials selection method, visualizing the process and the material decisions through the example of three products (disposable cup, lipstick tube and medical mask). In the first phase, a multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) method is used to define fixed and alternate product criteria. Product attributes mutually required by the designer, consumer and manufacturer were denoted as fixed product criteria, while the remaining attributes that were outside the mutual cross-section were denoted as alternate product criteria. Based on the associative description concept, the product attributes are mapped onto the attributes of a generic material. By considering whether the mappings related to fixed or to alternate material criteria, a material criteria chart is developed to provide the decision-maker (designer) with an evaluative approach towards materials selection, in favor of browsing the most suitable materials. In order to simulate the PDD method, the aim of this thesis is to develop a platform in the form of software protype. The need of developing a software prototype for the purposes of this thesis is to present the findings of the research, the development process as well as the user case scenario of the potential platform. The MIP saves time, is able to keep updated with constantly changing information and gives more options and opportunities to designers otherwise reliant on personal experience. To some extent, it can enhance the designers’ understanding of materials applicability to different types of products.