Implementation of DFE in the electronics industry using simple metrics for cost, quality, and environmental merit

This paper presents a methodology that uses simple-to-apply, narrowly-bounded (within the walls) environmental metrics and that incorporates simultaneous consideration of cost, performance, and environmental merit during the design phase of an electronic product. The examples presented demonstrate that design and process decisions may be made with only a few basic metrics and without highly specific data sets for every material and component used in a product. The benefits of using Monte Carlo simulation to account for uncertainty in the data are also shown. A web-based software tool has been developed for implementation of this methodology.