Appearing in Open Research Europe, this latest contribution to the scientific literature from the ETERNAL team introduces a new two-level hierarchical framework for early-stage sustainability assessment amongst a set of alternatives applicable from the earliest stages of process or product development. The use of the new framework in combination with an improved weighted-sum method for multi-criteria decision analysis in the presence of uncertainty is illustrated through application to a case study based upon a real-world decision scenario from speciality polymer manufacture.
The work described in the paper was motivated by the desire to increase the accessibility of a decision-making methodology and tool which is easily used by non-specialist users within the context of facilitated group activities including Britest process understanding studies. In particular, the new approaches strengthen Britest's capability to support early-stage thinking about the sustainability dimension of innovation projects.
In simple terms, the FESSA model helps project teams and managers of innovation portfolios think in the round and more strategically about their product and process innovations. It prompts conversation and knowledge sharing along the lines of five primary criteria: Technical Feasibility, clarity of Business Model, lowest possible Environmental Impact, feasibility of the Supply Chain around the manufacturing process, and Social Impact (the people factor). By drilling down into how well the innovation addresses a range of sub-criteria within each of these criteria a rich overall picture of the strengths and weaknesses of the various options being considered can be built up.
An important aspect of the new approach to decision making is that the framework is suppported by a computational algorithm which handles uncertainty in the evaluation scores provided to the alternatives. Uncertainty is often an inevitable fact of life, especially in the early stages of a project when objective experimental and financial data may be at a premium. The CURE algorithm at the heart of the software enabling the application of the FESSA framework embraces uncertainty, allowing decision makers to indicate not just how they rate outcomes relative to one another, but how uncertain they are about their evaluations. The input data across all relevant criteria of the FESSA framework are combined into a final outcome score probablity distribution for each alternative. This essentially indicates the prospects of success across all the sustainability dimensions for the alternatives, taking account of how important the various facets are in the decision process by weighting.
The ETERNAL project is contributing to sustainable development of pharmaceutical manufacture, use and disposal, by using and promoting full life cycle approaches covering design, manufacture, use, and disposal. Within the project, the FESSA framework has already been successfully applied to one of the project's industrial case studies scaling up a green chemistry approach based on improved manufacture of lipsome nanoparticle based formulations, and further use is planned as part of Britest's role steering the case studies through a pathway towards scale-up for commercial readiness.
Using FESSA and CURE, decisions makers can make timely, rational, and holistic decisions in a documented and defensible way, a key requirement to effective management of a sustainable research and innovation portfolio. If you are facing a difficult decision, the paper’s authors would be very happy to talk to you about supporting you in its use through a facilitated study.
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