Hierarchical Method for Prioritization of Sustainable Products’ Characteristics

Abstract

The conception of the manufacturing process to be initially applied in the parts rapid production targeting a first embodiment of an idea (prototypes) and without many demands on strength and accuracy is called rapid prototyping. New rapid prototyping technologies are more accessible under the aspects of cost, accuracy, usability, environmental and prototypes started to be increasingly explored in the sustainable product development process. This paper proposes the application of hierarchical analysis method to support the decision-making in Rapid Prototyping processes based on the analysis of product and RP technology and prototype characteristics. The application of the developed method consists of assigning numeric values to the product characteristics and to the important characteristics for users in order to build the comparison matrix to perform the assessment and the prioritization steps of the relevant features. Performing the prioritization of features considered most important along with the characteristics of the chosen prototyping technology make possible the analysis of the effect of the characteristics prioritization. The concepts of product development, rapid prototyping and analytic hierarchy process for the sustainable product were used in a structure (lightweight dual) to evaluate the proposed strategy. The lightweight dual product from the 3D printing technology has been successful to show the product’s purpose and functionality due to its lower cost, short execution time, good surface finishing and dimensional accuracy. The results show that the analysis of the sustainable product for rapid prototyping technology based on characteristics prioritization strategy improves the product design.