Life cycle design for inverse manufacturing

For achieving feasible product performance throughout the whole life cycle of products, a new approach to product life cycle design, called inverse manufacturing, is proposed, where products are designed for their entire life cycle from product conception to final reuse/recycling or disposal. In this approach, it is important to set up an appropriate product life cycle according to the requirements by the customers. In order to facilitate product design, particularly in conceptual phase, four types of typical product life cycle are proposed in this paper: from simple and complete reuse of whole products to very long life products with heavy maintenance. For the same kinds of products, different product life cycle can be selected according to the difference of product requirements. Simulation of life cycle performance with respect to various environmental factors is performed for optimizing the selection of life cycle types for specific product design. Several preliminary case studies have been performed for further development of the design method.