Intelligent decision support system for continuous improvement of resource-saving and recycling-conscious manufacturing

This paper focuses on the development and implementation of an intelligent decision support system (DSS) to enhance and further resource-saving and recycling conscious manufacturing activities associated with minimizing environmental impacts and resource and/or energy consumption through the whole product life-cycle. The intelligent DSS, which aims at more cost-effective and environmentally-friendlier product design and manufacturing, is mainly concerned with efficient integration of three functions: (1) a knowledge-based support system for selecting environmentally sound materials and manufacturing processes through a weighted normalizing procedure; (2) a constraint satisfaction and backtrack-free search technique assisting a flexible and efficient database query to guarantee environmentally preferable material continuously; and (3) simulation optimization techniques for synchronizing recycling activities and production management decisions.