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Hari Prasad Uppara 1

Problem Solving in Engineering:
Two types of engineering problems:

1. Analytic problems (or exercise solving)

• Solved by analysis and logical deductions.

• Closed-ended problems – only single correct solution

• Convergent thinking or a problem narrowing approach is applied.

2. Open-ended problems do not have a unique solution

• no single “correct” solution and the engineer looks for the best solution.

• [Link]
Hari Prasad Upparathinking or a problem-widening approach is applied. 2
▪ Engineers usually deal with ill-defined problems that are vaguely or ambiguously
formulated by the community or clients.
▪ A methodology for solving such complex problems is as follows

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The Conventional Engineering Design Process:

One way to summarize the challenges presented by the designing environment is to think of the following four Cs
of design:

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Design for Life Guidelines
and Strategies

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Design for Life Guidelines
and Strategies

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Measuring sustainability:

• Efforts should be made to be as

quantitative as possible when evaluating
alternative designs.
• Indicators and metrics that can be used
to measure and quantify environmental
sustainability need to be developed to
provide a basis for decision-making.
• In most engineering designs, the
measure is cost and the goal is to
minimize cost.
• Some indicators of environmental and
societal performance will be difficult to
measure.

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• In engineering design, it is most convenient to discuss sustainability in the
context of indicators developed through a Life Cycle Sustainability
Assessment (LCSA) framework.
• For example through an environmental and social LCA – and through the
indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Global
Reporting Initiative (GRI) frameworks

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Measuring sustainability:

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Measuring sustainability:

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Measuring sustainability:
• Rows – Environmental criteria usually
include material use, energy
consumption, solid waste and toxic
emissions. Social criteria usually include
social responsibility, local or regional
economic development and human
resource management.

• Columns – Depending on the life cycle

process tree of the product, the stages
can be named in different ways and the
number of columns can be increased.

• Such a matrix can help a design team

to make a quick qualitative
assessment of the life cycle by
identifying the cells that have major
“sustainability” impacts.
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Sustainable Design through
Sustainable Procurement Criteria
• Procurement is a key part of the project development stage, and it is the process which
creates, manages, and fulfils contracts.

• Innovation for sustainability requires the use of the best modern procurement practice.

• The use of sustainable procurement criteria is an opportunity for clients/owners to build

and operate projects in an environmentally friendly manner.

• The procuring organization will need technical support with specific engineering,
environmental and economic knowledge to undertake the whole tender process from
initial feasibility studies to the final selection of a contractor.
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The following typical phases can be distinguished
in the project development phase:
• Tendering for consultancy services

• The initial phase: This includes a general outline, feasibility study and to some extent conceptual
design. Initial phases have great impact on the economic and environmental performance of the
project. Thus, it is very important to incorporate sustainability considerations very early in the
process.

• Preparatory phase: This is also called the preliminary design phase where the more specific
technical solutions are considered and decided.

• Detailed design and tender document phase: The necessary design, technical specifications, and
tender documents for the will be developed ready for issue to the tenderers.
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Design case study of the vinyl chloride monomer process:

• The use of PVC is increasing which demands further production of VCM.

• This makes optimization of the production of VCM interesting and potentially profitable.

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 ❑ Compared with an average VMC plant, the
LCA results, displayed in Fig, show that, for
most impacts, the proposed VCM design is
environmentally more sustainable than an
average VCM plant.
❑ The exception to this is energy use whereby
the proposed plant would use around
3% more energy and generate around 7%
more greenhouse gases.
❑ A much more significant difference is noted
for the water discharge: while the proposed
plant is using around 30% less water than the
average plant, it is discharging into the
environment almost twice as much as the
average plant.

• The proposed plant also has higher carcinogenic potential, through a higher release of toxic substances.
• Therefore, these are the areas where further improvements could be investigated in the detailed design.

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Sustainable Product Design in Electronic Engineering:

❑ Chinese company, developing and producing various kinds of electronic products used for communication using an Eco-
Design Method called EcoSmarT.
❑ All companies are continuously investigating what characteristics customers want in the next generation (NG) of products.
❑ The features are translated into technical requirements, including environmental requirements, and later the designers come
up with different concepts which satisfy these requirements.

The targets for all eco-metrics are set in Step 1 (Concept) and baselined in Step 2 (Plan). All eco-metrics are
obtained, improved, and fine-tuned in Step 3 (Development) while actual Field Failure Rate (FFR) and “Rethink,
Reduce, Recycle, Refurbish, Resale” (5R) values are obtained in Step 4 (Validation). In the proposed method, the
role of LCA in a “Plan, Do, Check, Act” (PDCA) cycle is to “Check” environmental impacts holistically.

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The features of the design process are as follows:

1. Eco-Metrics: seven metrics

❑ Energy efficiency: Examples applicable to mobile phones are charger efficiency, absorbed
power, charging time, and receiver sensitivity
❑ Packaging materials mass and volume:
❑ Hazardous substances:
❑ Precious metals:
❑ Total mass: This metric refers to the total mass of the designed product including the accessories.
❑ Recyclability, recoverability, reuse-ability, disassemble-ability
❑ Lifetime reliability

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The features of the design process are as follows:

2. Collection of Requirements: For example, roadmaps for, and LCA performances of, similar products
as ED. These inputs form the basis for the collection of technical/functional/ performance requirements,
including environmental requirements. The output is the initial specification.
3. Design Step 1 – Drafting of Design Concepts: In this step the most promising concepts and optional
solutions are listed and drafted based on technical/functional/performance requirements and
environmental requirements. the Current Generation ED (CGED), in use by the customer, the seven
eco-metrics and final LCA score are obtained. For Next Generation ED (NGED) concepts, all eco-
metrics are defined and preliminary LCA scores are
obtained.
4. Design Step 2 – Plan: In this step, the design is planned. Examples of targets are for power and
resource usage, as well as energy efficiency.
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The features of the design process are as follows:

5. Design Step 3 – Development: Prototypes are created and then fine-tuned repeatedly to meet the
technical/functional/performance and environmental requirements. Meanwhile, verification and testing
will be repeatedly conducted on Prototypes and their fine-tuning models
6. Design Step 4 – Customer Validation: Here the final values of the eco-metrics and the LCA score for
the final NGED design are quantified and calculated, respectively, and put into the report from
Customer Validation.
7. Design Step 5 – Closing Process: Another LCA score is calculated based on additional data about the
life cycle of NGED and the design project for NGED is closed.

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 Role of engineers and sustainable engineering in
focus – self learning component

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