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Buildings are one of the largest contributors to negative environmental impacts because of the high consumption of energy and materials during their life cycle. The present work proposes a framework, able to make available information, both of general materials and specific commercial solutions; moreover, it overcomes the current state of the art, since, although focused on environmental sustainability, provides the opportunity to compare simultaneously several choices, also considering their properties and characteristics. Based on the proposed methodology, a tool structure and workflow are presented. The main potentiality is represented by the possibility of executing sustainability assessment already in the early stages of building design using the proposed tool when design choices significantly contribute to the global environmental impact of solutions. A validation procedure to quantitatively evaluate the main tool's limits and potentialities is proposed.

As nearly one third of global energy demand and CO2 emissions are attributable to manufacturing activities, the reduction of energy/resource consumption in the industrial sector is increasingly crucial. Therefore, research and innovation for the factories of the future is not only a matter of developing and integrating new technologies, but also a challenge to make manufacturing less dependent on energy and managed in an optimized way. This requires considering the efficiency of resource exploitation according to a systematic approach. To this aim, the present paper proposes a resource-saving tool, called Resource Value Mapping (RVM), and describes its application in a smart multinational company that produces electromechanical components for the automotive industry. The RVM tool is composed by three main modules that jointly allow the involved stakeholders to collaborate toward the optimization of the plant management: the Cloud data center that represents the repository of the collected real-time and offline data, the Analytics module that is responsible for data elaboration with the aim of calculating a set of key performance indicators useful to identify process inefficiencies, and the Web-based platform that represents the user interface of the tool. The case study demonstrated how such a tool allows (1) mapping the energy/resource flows to multiple levels (machine, line, plant), (2) characterizing them to identify the most critical activities that do not generate value and (3) supporting multiple stakeholders (plant manager, energy manger, operators) in the management of resource anomalies and definition of a more sustainable action plan.

Reducing energy/resource consumption in production processes can significantly improve the environmental performance of manufacturing systems. This paper proposes a sustainable manufacturing method and tool and describes its application in a mechanical engineering company which produces automotive components. The tool allows to map the processes/activities and the related resources consumed, assess the efficiency through specific key performance indicators, identify process criticalities and thus set mitigation or improvement strategies.

Nowadays, climate change requires companies to reduce their energy consumption and make their production systems more efficient. However, the complexity of the methodologies, the lack of transparency or high efforts (personnel/time) make this challenge especially difficult for SMEs. In this context, the present paper proposes a workflow to supports SMEs in a lean energy analysis. Through the implementation of several methodologies, a comprehensive assessment of energy consumption was carried out. The application to a real case study allowed to identify energy inefficiencies and to evaluate the energy saving and performance improvement actions.

In the recent years, many methodologies and tools to support the energy efficiency re-design of production systems have been developed, however, they do not investigate the real-time manufacturing process. In this paper, a methodology for energy efficiency re-design of production systems in a context of smart manufacturing is proposed. The continuous production-machine data collection with operator feedbacks enables the creation of a knowledge-based repository that provides useful support during the design of manufacturing systems. A case study in an automotive sector company has allowed to implement the methodology and to assess its effectiveness.

Background Population aging is inducing governments to redesign their healthcare models. One policy measure aimed at reducing healthcare expenditures and improving services is to encourage people to age-in-place. Scientific research has been trying to find ICT-enabled solutions to the growing problem of elderly home care. However, such research is often technology-oriented and neglects the end-user perspective. It does not consider the real needs of older people and all stakeholders involved in their healthcare. Method A user-centered design approach was adopted with the involvement of older people, experts dealing with the aging population, and the whole stakeholders’ chain. Through surveys, focus groups, and brainstorming sessions, it was possible to determine the main features of the product service platform. Results Starting from a large-scale survey of elderly people living in Italy, this paper presents the requirements and the architecture of a product service platform aimed at improving the independence and elderly quality of life. This work proposes an elderly-centered platform that works as an aggregation point of an articulated social health system, provides multiple tailored services, and optimizes the use of local resources. Conclusions The involvement of the end-user and all the stakeholders allowed for the consideration of different perspectives and the creation of a value network that aggregates existing services, resources, and information with new opportunities to achieve common benefits. This work provides guidelines on how to develop this type of platform by exploiting the potential of each stakeholder without creating new barriers. Technology, caregivers, and society are combined synergistically to provide tailored services able to satisfy specific users’ needs.

The assessment and monitoring of energy and resource efficiency is an essential activity toward the implementation of sustainable manufacturing practices. Existing energy/resource assessment methods and tools are not based on a comprehensive approach, lack on the use of specific key performance indicators, are dedicated to expert stakeholders and do not provide useful suggestions for improving production systems. This paper proposes an innovative method, called Resources Value Mapping that aims to map and classify activities and related energy/resource consumptions according to lean philosophy principles (value-added, non value-added, waste). A user-friendly map and two efficiency indicators (Cost Index and Muda Index) are proposed to quantitatively support the identification of criticalities related to activities, processes, lines, plants, etc., and to successively guide the decision-making process during the improvement strategies implementation. The method has been used to analyze a manufacturing plant that produces cooking appliances. The case study demonstrated the applicability of the method in real industrial contexts and its effectiveness in identifying the energy/resource flows (electricity and compressed air), departments (sheet department) and lines (mechanical and hydraulic presses) for which the waste and non value-added consumptions are prominent. The analysis highlighted that less of 20% of the resources consumed during the process creates value, offering wide margins for improvement. Finally, it aided the definition of an action plan leading to relevant reduction of resource consumptions, economic savings and environmental benefits.

Manufacturing systems are among the main consumers of energy. Several methods and tools have been developed to support companies toward energy efficiency. However, they generally require high computational effort, onerous measurement campaigns or complex models. In this paper, a method to perform a lean energy assessment starting from the asset characteristics is proposed. It is based on a set of corrective factors that consider both technical and productive aspects. The final goal is to overcome the lack of precise data needed to identify hotspots from the energy point of view. A real industrial case study allows implementing the method and demonstrating its usefulness.

In the last decade, the environmental sustainability has become an important issue that drives more and more the consumer decisions. Consequently, industrial companies are called to meet the growing demand for more sustainable products. Especially in the furniture sector, customers pay serious attention to the emissions that negatively affect human health and so they request products with low volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emissions. This represents a big challenge because it requires the strictly control of each component provided by all the supply chain actors through expensive laboratory tests. For this aim, the present paper proposes a method to estimate the total VOCs emissions of furniture products starting from the characteristics of all semi-finished products (e.g., geometric features, product composition, process information and functionality) and through the definition of an appropriate impact scale based on historical data. It allows making the supply chain (SC) more sustainable, limiting costly chamber tests.

In last years, increasing attention on environmental matters is registered and companies are forced by legislations, normative and protocols to increase the environmental performances of their products. Observing the industrial context, it emerges there are several barriers for an effective implementation of eco-design strategies inside design departments. The paper presents a knowledge repository tool, which aims at both, providing a basic guide on environmental sustainability issues and favoring knowledge sharing among design departments. The tool is mainly based on a structured repository in which company materials, organized in different forms, are collected. The repository contains training section, well-organized guidelines, company specific knowledge and milestone. The implementation of the tool in two industrial companies is presented and results of usability and tool effectiveness discussed.

Smart environment is a key challenge for current ICT research: it is one of the solutions that can enhance people’s quality of life and enable users with impairment to live independently. Over the years, scientific research has proposed several solutions to help and improve the capabilities of its occupants, but they are often developed for a specific context (e.g. particular disease or impairment). These systems do not adapt to the real needs of users with different profiles, and neglect that the user’s requirements may evolve over time. This research work aims to develop a new adaptive smart system able to support users (with and without disabilities) in performing daily tasks by recognizing their preferences and actions and adapting the system feedback consequently. With the aim to develop an easy, efficient and usable adaptive smart system, the final users have been involved in the whole design and development process. The system was validated through a virtual reality system allowing the user interaction evaluation and helping the usability improvement.

Industrial manufacturing is the largest end-use sector in terms of both final energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions (more than 30% of the total); its increase is rapidly altering the world climate. The need to mitigate the environmental impacts of manufacturing processes makes energy efficiency a key success factor for sustainable production. Accordingly, the scientific community's interest in energy management has grown considerably, resulting in several literature reviews on energy modelling and production systems analysis, emissions calculation, sustainability tools and benchmarking techniques. However, a comprehensive analysis of methods and tools aimed at improving energy awareness and assessing their effects on energy efficiency is lacking. To address this gap, this paper undertakes a systematic literature review of energy assessment methods and tools. From the 1367 papers retrieved by searching scientific literature databases, 64 scientific articles met the inclusion criteria and were analysed in detail. The study aims to provide scholars with a picture of the current state of scientific research and to identify the scientific works that could help industry practitioners in energy management. Following the ISO 50001 framework, the methods and tools were divided into three main groups (i.e. energy analysis, energy evaluation and energy-saving measures methods) and the specific findings relating to each group were synthesized. Finally, the paper addresses unresolved issues and challenges and makes suggestions for future research directions.

Wearable computers allow users to record and access information at any time. The adoption and use of such devices is largely dependent on the users’ acceptance of the technology. Previous studies investigated technology acceptance of wearables without having end-users directly trying the technology. The present paper aims at assessing the user acceptance of a wearable device to support cooking related activities, together with aspects of usability and experience of use. To this end, we developed a kitchen apron with embedded commands for navigating through the contents of a digital cookbook and asked a group of younger (N = 15, mean age 23.9 SD = 2.5) and older users (N = 15, mean age 30.3 SD = 7.6) to deploy it while preparing a recipe. Respondents’ opinions were collected using questionnaires after they had accomplished the cooking task required. Overall, the kitchen apron was well received by both younger and older adults. Findings suggest that the perceived usefulness of the device and the compatibility of it with users’ common activities accounted for the intention to adopt and use a wearable device in the kitchen.

Il presente documento riporta la rendicontazione tecnica del SAL-V (M31 a M36), riassumendo le principali attività svolte dai vari partner e illustrando i risultati più significativi raggiunti. Il report è strutturato raggruppando attività e risultati in sezioni ciascuna corrispondente ad un Obiettivo Realizzativo (OR). Nello specifico il SAL-V comprende attività che ricadono nell'OR2, OR3, OR4 e OR5 essendo l'OR1 completato nel precedente periodo rendicontativo; dunque il documento presenta quattro sezioni principali corrispondenti ai quattro OR menzionati. A sua volta, ciascuna di queste sezioni è strutturata come segue: 1. Obiettivi dell'OR - In questa sezione si richiamano i principali obiettivi dell'OR come da capitolato tecnico e si evidenziano le attività previste per il periodo considerato (M31-M36); 2. Attività svolte nel periodo considerato e livello di avanzamento - In questa sezione si descrive il livello di avanzamento delle attività previste nel periodo, distinguendo tra le attività di tipo tecnico e di coordinamento/monitoraggio; 3. Elenco dei deliverable - In questa sezione si presenta una tabella sinottica dei report tecnici elaborati dai partner coinvolti e una sintesi dei principali risultati; 4. Deviazioni dal piano di lavoro - In questa sezione si confrontano i risultati ottenuti dai partner coinvolti rispetto agli obiettivi programmati nel periodo e le eventuali criticità riscontrate; Infine il documento presenta una sezione di appendice che riassume i principali meeting effettuati nell'arco del SAL-V.

Il presente documento riporta la rendicontazione tecnica del SAL-IV (M25 a M30), riassumendo le principali attività svolte dai vari partner e illustrando i risultati più significativi raggiunti. Il report è strutturato raggruppando attività e risultati in sezioni ciascuna corrispondente ad un Obiettivo Realizzativo (OR). Nello specifico il SAL-IV comprende attività che ricadono nell'OR2, OR3, OR4 e OR5 essendo l'OR1 completato nel precedente periodo rendicontattivo; dunque il documento presenta quattro sezioni principali corrispondenti ai quattro OR menzionati. A sua volta, ciascuna di queste sezioni è strutturata come segue: 1.Obiettivi dell'OR - In questa sezione si richiamano i principali obiettivi dell'OR come da capitolato tecnico e si evidenziano le attività previste per il periodo considerato (M25-M30); 2.Attività svolte nel periodo considerato e livello di avanzamento - In questa sezione si descrive il livello di avanzamento delle attività previste nel periodo, distinguendo tra le attività di tipo tecnico e di coordinamento/monitoraggio; 3.Elenco dei deliverable - In questa sezione si presenta una tabella sinottica dei report tecnici elaborati dai partner coinvolti e una sintesi dei principali risultati; 4.Deviazioni dal piano di lavoro - In questa sezione si confrontano i risultati ottenuti dai partner coinvolti rispetto agli obiettivi programmati nel periodo e le eventuali criticità riscontrate; Infine il documento presenta una sezione di appendice che riassume i principali meeting effettuati nell'arco del SAL-IV.