Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Modeling innovativeness in consumer products with the influence of environmental sustainability

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/d217qs018

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  • This thesis is the result of two research publications, which together form a framework for the evaluation of product innovativeness with potential future applications to early design. Innovation is a challenging concept to quantify. Experts seemingly have a grasp of what innovation is when they see it, however this evaluation is highly subjective. To date, there is no accurate way of measuring a product's innovativeness. The research presented herein outlines a method to quantify product innovativeness based on three latent, or unobserved, variables. These latent variables were calculated based on several product attributes. The values of these measurable product attributes were associated with the probability that a product was selected as innovative. One attribute, product sustainability, is measured by environmental impact. As there was no environmental impact data available for the products used to generate the latent variable model, experiments were designed to collect such data. Life cycle assessment was performed on the products, as well as several other pairs of innovative and common products. These product's environmental impacts were compared at a high level with the entire product's impact, as well as at a more abstract level, with the functions and flows of each product. It was found that innovative products tend to have a higher environmental impact, which was concentrated in a small number of functions. With functional environmental impacts calculated, it will be possible to evaluate the environmental impact of designs during the conceptual stages of design, when only a functional model is available. In addition, the framework for evaluating product innovativeness, using a latent variable model, can be used during the original design process to evaluate how innovative concepts or designs are. Together, these two evaluations have the capability of producing innovative and more sustainable products. Future directions for this research include the application of the framework in an original design to determine whether more innovative concepts can be generated. Additionally, environmental impacts of conceptual designs and functional architectures can be estimated to determine which concepts to pursue in detailed design. Comparing alternatives in functional designs will help to determine the conceptual design with the lowest environmental impact to pursue in detailed design.
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