Evaluation of Design Alternatives´ Environmental Performance Using AHP and ER Approaches

This paper proposes an approach to evaluate the environmental performance of design alternatives during new product development (NPD) processes. The use of multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) approaches with life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology to evaluate design alternatives´ environmental performance during NPD processes is first discussed. The proposed approach integrates an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) with evidential reasoning (ER) in the environmental performances evaluation and prioritization of different design options. A case study is described to illustrate the use of the proposed method.