Environmental Load Evaluation Device with Development-Goal Navigation

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing environmental load evaluation methods do not adequately consider development goals, leading to inefficient evaluation of environmental loads in product development.

Innovation Solution

An environmental load evaluating device that includes a product group specification unit, environmental navigation specification unit, and environmental evaluation item extraction unit to associate environmental navigation items with development goals, allowing for efficient evaluation of environmental loads.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If environmental evaluation is performed using basic unit data separately from development goals, then the evaluation can be conducted using standardized basic units, but the evaluation does not sufficiently consider development goals leading to inefficiency

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveevaluation accuracyVSAvoidevaluation efficiency
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSProductivity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces 'environmental navigation items' as an intermediary layer between basic unit data and development goals. These navigation items serve as mediators that connect standardized environmental data with specific development objectives, allowing the system to maintain standardized evaluation while adapting to different development goals through the navigation item framework

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent segments the evaluation system into distinct hierarchical layers: basic unit data layer, environmental navigation items layer, and development goals layer. This segmentation allows each layer to function independently while maintaining connections through defined relationships, enabling efficient retrieval of relevant evaluation items based on development goals without processing all basic unit data

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

2Adaptability or versatility

If environmental evaluation considers multiple development goals, then the evaluation becomes more comprehensive, but the complexity of specifying and managing evaluation items increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveevaluation comprehensivenessVSAvoidsystem complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent creates a universal evaluation framework where environmental navigation items serve multiple development goals simultaneously. Each navigation item can be associated with multiple development goals, and each development goal can utilize multiple navigation items, allowing the same evaluation infrastructure to support diverse evaluation needs without requiring separate systems for each goal

Inventive Principle:
Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent performs preliminary organization of evaluation items into environmental navigation categories before actual evaluation execution. By pre-structuring the evaluation framework with navigation items that correspond to different development goals, the system avoids the complexity of ad-hoc item selection during evaluation, making the process more manageable and scalable

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentEP4614423A1Environmental load evaluating device and method
Publication Date: 2025.09.10 HITACHI LTD
  • EP4614423A1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP4614423A1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP4614423A1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

To achieve efficient environmental evaluation for objects, such as products, that also takes into account development goals. An environmental load evaluating device 100 for evaluating an environmental load of a product includes a product group specification unit 11 that specifies a product group that is an evaluation target for the environmental load, an environmental navigation specification unit 12 that specifies a development goal corresponding to the specified product group and specifies a plurality of environmental navigation items corresponding to the specified development goal, the plurality of environmental navigation items being items that affect environmental loads in a life cycle of the product group, and an environmental evaluation item extraction unit 13 that extracts environmental evaluation items associated with the environmental navigation items and being evaluation units in evaluation of the environmental load.