A Novel Approach for Sustainable Product Development Education

The classical principles of product development have been formulated through a framework that relies heavily upon assumptions of continuously declining validity in the modern marketplace. Mobile phones are one such product group that fall into the cycle of rapid consumption, disposal, and replacement. Such principles have traditionally led to a narrowly focused development approach, where systems and processes are optimized solely in terms of maximizing corporate profit. The recent increase in consumer demand for green products has counteracted this traditional approach, driving companies to adopt the triple bottom line or sustainability philosophy. The objective of this paper is to propose a uniform definition of Sustainable Product Development for utilization in academia based upon existing best practices in industry. The proposed definition is formulated as a coupling of an engineering process and a leadership framework. The sustainable product development engineering process has evolved significantly through years of continuous improvement upon the primitive design-build-test sequence. The sustainable product development leadership framework is generated by expanding the triple bottom line concept into seven core principles which form a sustainability vision for inspiring companies. The seven principles are – 1) Purpose, 2) Policy, 3) Process, 4) People, 5) Planet, 6) Product, and 7) Profit. Additionally, the paper discusses a strategy for implementing sustainable product development into engineering technology programs. The proposed strategy will rely upon an integrated learning pedagogy, in which the concepts are introduced in a technology orientation course and reinforced in a capstone product development course. Learning outcome assessment of this effort should guide the next phase of integrating sustainable product development in engineering technology curricula.