TY - JOUR

T1 - System Orientation as an Enabler for Sustainable Frugal Engineering

T2 - 30th CIRP Life Cycle Engineering Conference, LCE 2023

AU - Achtelik, Timo

AU - Herstatt, Cornelius

AU - Tiwari, Rajnish

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Research about barriers towards green material transition in automotive often points to technical or regulatory barriers. Contrary we emphasize an under-researched inhibitor, namely the underlying innovation assumptions and technical requirements in organizations that define themselves as quality-driven. As sufficiency represents a vital strategy to encounter corporate sustainability, especially Western organizations are forced to rethink their “bigger and better innovation ideologies”. Thus, our research shows that overly high and complex technical requirements that may not be relevant for a specific use case represent a serious barrier for the implementation of often inferior secondary polymer materials. We address the emerging challenges through the theoretical lens of frugal engineering that offers a promising contribution to corporate sustainability due to its focus on core functionalities and optimized performance levels. Using a mixed-method expert interview study as part of an ongoing action research project within a leading German automotive OEM we develop a system-oriented approach for sustainable and frugal engineered polymer materials. The method will support engineers and product developers to overcome overengineering and mitigate requirement-based inhibitors of life cycle engineering. Future research should examine the discussed barrier in other industries and substantiate the applicability of our proposed method with further case studies.

AB - Research about barriers towards green material transition in automotive often points to technical or regulatory barriers. Contrary we emphasize an under-researched inhibitor, namely the underlying innovation assumptions and technical requirements in organizations that define themselves as quality-driven. As sufficiency represents a vital strategy to encounter corporate sustainability, especially Western organizations are forced to rethink their “bigger and better innovation ideologies”. Thus, our research shows that overly high and complex technical requirements that may not be relevant for a specific use case represent a serious barrier for the implementation of often inferior secondary polymer materials. We address the emerging challenges through the theoretical lens of frugal engineering that offers a promising contribution to corporate sustainability due to its focus on core functionalities and optimized performance levels. Using a mixed-method expert interview study as part of an ongoing action research project within a leading German automotive OEM we develop a system-oriented approach for sustainable and frugal engineered polymer materials. The method will support engineers and product developers to overcome overengineering and mitigate requirement-based inhibitors of life cycle engineering. Future research should examine the discussed barrier in other industries and substantiate the applicability of our proposed method with further case studies.

KW - automotive

KW - Frugal engineering

KW - frugal innovation

KW - frugality

KW - material development

KW - system engineering

KW - Management studies

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85164299134&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.procir.2023.02.021

DO - 10.1016/j.procir.2023.02.021

M3 - Conference article in journal

AN - SCOPUS:85164299134

VL - 116

SP - 119

EP - 124

JO - Procedia CIRP

JF - Procedia CIRP

SN - 2212-8271

Y2 - 15 May 2023 through 17 May 2023

ER -