Expert system support for environmental assessment of manufacturing products and facilities

The goal of environmentally conscious design for manufacturing is to select materials and processes that minimize environmental impact. This paper describes a general and uniform way to analyze the environmental impact of manufacturing based on the product decomposition, the materials used in the manufacturing processes, and the particular view of the environment. To accomplish this task, we developed a computer program, called EcoSys(TM) that assists manufacturing engineers and environmental reviewers in assessing the environmental consequences of their manufacturing decisions.