Bi-objective optimization for low-carbon product family design

Consumers, industry, and government entities are becoming increasingly concerned about the issue of global warming. With this in mind, manufacturers have begun to develop products with consideration of low-carbon. In recent years, many companies are utilizing product families to satisfy various customer needs with lower costs. However, little research has been conducted on the development of a product family that considers environmental factors. In this paper, a low-carbon product family design that integrates environmental concerns is proposed. To this end, a new method of platform planning is investigated with considerations of cost and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission of a product family simultaneously. In this research, a low-carbon product family design problem is described at first, and then a GHG emission model of product family is established. Furthermore, to support low-carbon product family design, an optimization method is applied to make a significant trade-off between cost and GHG emission to implement a feasible platform planning. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated through a case study.