Translating Environmental Legislation into the Engineering Design Domain

The aim of this paper is to present and discuss a case study on how an Original Equipment Manufacturer's technical design center translates and integrates legislative environmental requirements into their product range. The integration of these environmental requirements during the conceptual design phase, where the significant proportion of resources is committed, is of utmost importance. Additionally, with increasing levels of product development being conducted by the first-tier suppliers, there is greater emphasis on the Original Equipment Manufacturer, who controls the product specifications, for translating and filtering the environmental requirements down the supply chain. A Requirements Management based model addressing environmental issues is described.