Title: An integrated analysis of customer value and environmental burden for environmentally conscious design

Authors: Koji Kimita, Yoshiki Shimomura, Tomohiko Sakao, Tatsunori Hara, Tamio Arai

Addresses: Department of System Design, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Asahigaoka 6-6, Hino-shi, Tokyo, Japan. ' Department of System Design, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Asahigaoka 6-6, Hino-shi, Tokyo, Japan. ' Department of Management and Engineering, Linkoping University, Linkoping, SE-581 83, Sweden. ' Department of Precision Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan. ' Department of Precision Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan

Abstract: Environmental problems, such as global warming have become more serious in the last two decades. For environmental sustainability, the production and consumption of artefacts should be reduced. According to this background, many environmentally conscious products/services are available in the market. However, these products/services are not necessarily acceptable to customers at present. A possible reason for this is that few ecodesign methodologies and tools have been successfully used to effectively incorporate customer needs. Eco-products/services must be environmentally friendly as well as conform to the customer requirements. This paper proposes a method for integrated product analysis from the viewpoints of environmental burden and customer value. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through its application.

Keywords: environmentally conscious design; customer requirements; customer value; design engineering; design support; service engineering; service modelling; customer analysis; persona; perceived quality; perceived sacrifice; non-monetary cost; ecodesign; product design; sustainable design.

DOI: 10.1504/IJDE.2009.030175

International Journal of Design Engineering, 2009 Vol.2 No.3, pp.262 - 277

Published online: 11 Dec 2009 *

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