Application of agent technology for recycling‐oriented product assessment
| Published date | 21 June 2013 |
| Date | 21 June 2013 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-02-2013-0062 |
| Pages | 817-839 |
| Author | Ewa Dostatni,Jacek Diakun,Adam Hamrol,Waldemar Mazur |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Application of agent technology
for recycling-oriented
product assessment
Ewa Dostatni, Jacek Diakun, Adam Hamrol and Waldemar Mazur
Chair of Management and Production Engineering,
Poznan University of Technology, Poznan
´, Poland
Abstract
Purpose – The paper aims to describe ideas and implementation of the computer tool for
computer-aided and recycling-oriented design. Currently, there is a strong tendency to take into
account the impact of a product on the natural environment. The authors concentrated on the issue of
the recycling process of the product, taking into account the phase of its design. The purpose,
structure, technology and example results are presented in this paper.
Design/methodology/approach – It was assumed that analysis will be performed based on a set of
measures of a product. These measures (developed by the authors), describing the product from the
recycling point of view, are calculated automatically, according to the changes (variants) in
the product’s model. The presented tool is based on agent technology. The structure of the system –
the agents, its roles and communication between them – has been described.
Findings – The main achievement of the work presented in this paper is the method supporting
eco-design based on agent technology. Based on the analysis of the process of recycling-oriented
eco-design, the authors designed and then implemented the tool that aids designers’ activities in the
area of eco-design. The drawn-up method supports decision making concerning designing
environmental-friendly products. Thanks to agent technology, the design process can be conducted
in the distributed design environment.
Research limitations/implications – The usage of the presented computer-aided and
recycling-oriented system during the design process requires the duplication of some of the
engineer’s work. The analysis is performed within the presented tool, outside the typical contemporary
design environment, such as CAD 3D systems. As a consequence, there is a need to enter the product
structure into the described system, which can be inconvenient. The further work of the authors
assumes implementation of this concept into a CAD 3D system.
Originality/value – There has been a limited amount of research work regarding application agent
technology in the field of end-of-life oriented design. The structure of the system, the measurements
and idea of extension of product structure are the original results of the work. The results could be
implemented into commercial computer-aided design systems, especially into its PLM (product
lifecycle management) group, due to the weak representation of end-of-life phases in these tools.
Keywords Agent technology, De sign for recycling, Recycling, Com puters, Design
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Presently, the handling of products withdrawn from usage is one of the most important
problems emerging in modern society. It concerns not only Europe and the USA,
but the whole world (Zia et al., 2008; Chen et al., 2009; Bezzina and Dimech, 2011). It is
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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This work has been funded by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (grant no.
T07C 025 30).
Received 5 February 2013
Revised 20 March 2013
Accepted 22 March 2013
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 113 No. 6, 2013
pp. 817-839
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/IMDS-02-2013-0062
Application
of agent
technology
817
a common conviction that one of the possibilities to solve this problem is taking into
account the environmental issues in designing the product. The earlier the
environmental aspects are identified, the greater the possibility to design an
environmental-friendly product (ISO, 1995; Santos-Reyes and Lawlor-Wright, 2001;
Lin et al., 2001; Sundin et al., 2012).
Widely understood environmental issues manifest themselves by appearing and
evolving the term “design for environment” (Lin et al., 2001). Within this term one can
distinguish: design for remanufacturing, design for reusability, design for disassembly
and design for disposal. The holistic approach to the product is also reflected in the
term product lifecycle management (PLM), which is also a broad one. It can be
perceived both as a management paradigm (Sa
¨a
¨ksvuori and Immonen, 2002) and as an
IT solution, whose components are dedicated to deal with particular phases of product
lifecycle (Hadaya and Marchildon, 2012). Although, in the authors’ assessment, within
the scope of functionality of PLM solutions available on the market, the particular
phases of product lifecycle are not represented in an equal way. It mainly conce rns
final phases, especially the recycling phase. The solution presented in this paper
is a step towards including environmental issues into design in a practical sense.
Its essence consists in using agent technology in design process. The use of this type of
system architecture is grounded in the complexity of modern products, both in design
and material aspects. The research question of this paper is to determine the usefulness
of agent technology for supporting the designer’s work in obtaining products that are
recycling friendly. An additional research goal is to define a new set of measures to
assess the susceptibility of a product to be recycled.
The remainder of this article is structured in six sections. Section 2 presents the
measures used in quantitative assessment of products toward their susceptibility to
recycling. Section 3 characterizes agent technology, taking recycling issues into
account, and justifies usage of such an approach for the purpose of design.
The structure and operation of the system is presented in Section 4. Section 5 presents
the set of recycling-susceptibility measures developed by the authors. An example of
assessment of a household appliance through use of the system is also shown in
Section 6. The paper concludes with implications arisen from this study, including the
limitations of the presented solution and further research directions.
2. Methods and indices of recycling-oriented product assessment
Existing computer tools aiding a designer’s actions in the area of eco-design allow
selection of a method of recycling, eco balancing of products and materials and help
defining paths of disassembly. They can be individual tools or integrated systems,
joining together many modules. Most of these tools, aiding in the environmental
assessment of products, are based on variousmethods, e.g. LCA – life cycle assessment,
LCC – life cycle cost,LCS – lifecycle sustainable, LCIA – life cycle approach (Guine
´eetal.,
2001; Bouman et al., 2000; Weidema et al., 1999; Sadiq and Khan, 2006; Go
´ralczyk and
Kulczycka, 2005; Santos-Reyesand Lawlor-Wright, 2001; DeMendonc¸a and Baxter, 2001;
Dove, 2005) and eco-indices, which are created based on obligatory standards.
The eco-indices have a form of single values, representing an influence of the
product or material on the environment. For example, material input per unit of service
(MIPS) determines the quantity of materials used for the product to be manufactured
(Ritthoff and Liedtke, 2002). A MIT index is a complementary value, which determines
IMDS
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