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Editorial for the Special Issue of Sustainable Design and Manufacturing for Circular Economy

As natural resources become limited and energy costs keep rising, minimizing negative environmental and societal impacts while maintaining economically viable has become a paramount issue for the society. Global businesses have responded by introducing a novel paradigm Circular Economy (CE) which aims to increase volatility in raw material availability and lower the environmental impact of raw materials acquisition and product disposal. Fundamentally, CE helps corporations moving away from a classic linear business model (Cradle to Grave) to embrace a circular one (Cradle to Cradle) so that it enables the loop of products and components, and in the meantime, prolong the use of raw materials and the associated functions, services, and values. To benefit from CE, design and manufacturing play a critical role and are pivotal to its success. For example, products must be designed to be durable, upgradeable, repairable, or recoverable so that they won’t end up in landfill rightly after their first life cycles, and in the meantime, they are designed to be easily taken apart, refurbished and remanufactured so that under the guidance of a proper end-oflife strategy, they will be brought to life again for new cycles. Therefore, this special issue is dedicated to the latest research, development, and applications that target sustainable design and manufacturing for circular economy, and endeavor how such research efforts can benefit a wider community from design and manufacturing, to business and social science. The first paper, “A Proposed Approach to Improve Current Sustainable Product Development” by Salari and Bhuiyan, offers their views on the importance of sustainable product development. Existing tools and methods for sustainable product development have been categorized into two main groups, i.e. guidelines and analytical models. Furthermore, six prevailing limitations of these approaches are identified, i.e. weak support of trade-offs; difficult to learn, understand, and use; weak connection to product development process; lack of life cycle thinking; lack of holistic method; and lack of communication tools. In response, the authors have proposed two solutions with the current focus on developing an analytical modeling method to support trade-offs in sustainable product development. “Product Design and Business Model Strategies for a Circular Economy” by Bocken, Pauw, Bakker, and Grinten reports their efforts in developing a framework of strategies to guide designers and business strategies in the move from a linear to a circular economy, which is essentially built upon a categorization of resource cycles, i.e. slowing, closing, and narrowing loops. This framework provides an overview and guidance to academics, businessmen, and practitioners to bridge product design and business model for a circular economy. A number of case examples are included to demonstrate the validity of this framework while a number of future research questions are yet to be addressed. “Secondary Use of Electric Vehicle Batteries and Potential Impacts on Business Models” by Jiao and Evans targets specifically on the current practice of secondary use of electric vehicle batteries. Based on four qualitative case studies, a number of deciding factors are identified, among which government support is probably the most crucial one that impacts the business model of electric vehicles. This study has also highlighted that future research should also focus on the emerging enablers and barriers to the market diffusion of repurposed electric vehicle batteries. Concerning the assessment of environmental impact in automotive industry, a research gap is identified with respect to the study of plastic components and their material selection and associated manufacturing processes. In this regard, “Effects of Environmental Impact Based on Alternative Materials and Process Selection in Automotive Component Design” by Gallimore and Cheung has offered a computer tool to model plastic parts and their associated sustainability functions are used to analyze their environmental impacts. The study reveals that material selection plays a significant role and reducing the environmental impact of a component during the early stage of product development implies a superior end of life impact. By acknowledging the power of lean thinking and its philosophy, Kodali and Soni have reported the efforts of using interpretive structural modeling and path analysis for the proposed framework of lean supply chain management. By taking advantage of their study based on Indian manufacturing industry, the authors have developed a mental model for the six pillars of the framework and have further revealed the relationships between these pillars and their constructs. Statistical tests are performed to validate the structural model for pillars and the constructs of lean supply chain. “3-D Modeling and Hexahedral Mesh Generation Method based on Failure Characteristics of