G.ENESI - Integrated software platform for Green ENgineering dESIgn and product sustainability

The project (36 months long) aims at developing a software engineering platform, called G.EN.ESI for eco-design and product sustainability of electronic and mechatronic products. G.EN.ESI is realized through a set of new tools that support designers’ choices from an environmental point of view. These tools allow to evaluate technical solutions in the early design phases and their impact on the whole product life cycle.

The platform is the physical implementation of a eco-design methodology that aims at three objectives: speed, diffusion, and usability. Firstly it allows a rapid environmental assessment of design choices since the early stages of conception and design. Secondly, it promotes both the diffusion of the principles and instruments of the eco-design and their usability in technical design departments. That is possible through the simplification of analysis technologies and their integration with traditional tools used in the process of product development.

The industrial field of reference, where the methodology and the tools are tested, regards small and large appliances. In terms of environmental impact all the phases of product life cycle (from production to disposal) are important and the parameters to be controlled at design time are several. Materials, processes, assembly methods, packaging, transport systems, geographical location of use and disassembly methods are just some of the elements that should be considered.