Integrating Sustainability into Product Design, Supply Networks, and Industrial Innovation  

Research by Alok Bihari Singh , Rachit Kumar Sharma, Prashant Kumar Singh & Prof. Prabir Sarkar

Research at the Design Research Laboratory (DRL), IIT Ropar addresses sustainability as an integral part of engineering design and industrial decision-making. The laboratory’s work in this domain focuses on developing methods, analytical frameworks, decision-support tools, and evidence-based strategies that help designers, manufacturers, and organizations incorporate environmental, economic, and social considerations into products, processes, supply networks, and service systems.

A major contribution of DRL has been the application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to identify environmental hotspots across different industrial sectors. Studies in the pharmaceutical, dairy, automotive, and service sectors have demonstrated how product configuration, material selection, packaging, energy consumption, transportation, manufacturing processes, and operational practices influence overall environmental performance. These investigations have helped identify the stages where design interventions and process improvements can provide the greatest sustainability benefits. For example, the laboratory’s work has highlighted the environmental significance of pharmaceutical packaging, energy-intensive manufacturing activities, dairy feed systems, and material choices across product life cycles. DRL has also contributed significantly to sustainable supply-chain and industrial decision-making. Hybrid multi-criteria decision-making approaches have been developed to identify and prioritize the barriers and drivers influencing sustainability adoption in manufacturing supply networks. The research has shown the importance of factors such as management commitment, regulatory support, financial considerations, product quality improvement, consumer expectations, and integration of sustainability into organizational decision-making. These frameworks provide industries with structured approaches for prioritizing sustainability initiatives rather than relying solely on qualitative judgement.

Another important area of research is ecodesign and environmentally conscious product development. The laboratory has investigated how sustainability can be incorporated at the earliest stages of product design, where decisions often have a major influence on environmental performance throughout the product life cycle. Research has identified important ecodesign practices such as enhancing durability and reliability, facilitating maintenance and repair, improving material selection, adopting alternative manufacturing processes, increasing recyclability, and reducing resource consumption. To support designers in making informed sustainability decisions, DRL has developed AI-enabled design-support approaches. An Artificial Neural Network-based tool was created to estimate the environmental and economic implications of different design alternatives using parameters such as product size, material density, manufacturing process, transportation mode, and recyclability. The tool demonstrated more than 90% prediction accuracy for estimating carbon footprint and life-cycle cost, while considerably reducing the time required for sustainability assessment during early product development. Such work demonstrates how artificial intelligence can make sustainability assessment more accessible and useful to designers before detailed product specifications are finalized.

The laboratory has also investigated the human and organizational dimensions of sustainability. Studies examining the requirements and priorities of engineering designers and design researchers have revealed differences in how various stakeholders perceive and use ecodesign support tools. This research emphasizes that effective sustainability tools must not only be technically sound but should also be practical, intuitive, relevant to industrial workflows, and responsive to the needs of their intended users. DRL’s research extends beyond manufacturing to sectors such as hospitality, where sustainability adoption is increasingly influenced by automation, artificial intelligence, operational efficiency, waste reduction, and changing consumer expectations. Research in this area has examined the motivations, barriers, and organizational factors affecting the implementation of sustainable practices and emerging technologies, helping build a broader understanding of sustainability as both an engineering and management challenge.

Collectively, the laboratory’s contributions have helped translate sustainability from a broad environmental objective into measurable criteria, design principles, assessment methods, decision frameworks, and intelligent tools. The outcomes of this research support industries in identifying environmental hotspots, comparing design alternatives, selecting sustainable suppliers and contract manufacturers, prioritizing improvement strategies, and integrating sustainability into product and organizational decision-making. Through this work, DRL continues to advance the concept of Design for Sustainability by linking engineering design with life-cycle thinking, artificial intelligence, ecodesign, sustainable manufacturing, resilient supply networks, and responsible industrial innovation. The broader objective is to enable products and systems that deliver functional and economic value while reducing environmental impacts and supporting more sustainable industrial development.