1/25/2010
Harrison M. Kim, an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering (IESE) has received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
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Harrison M. Kim, an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering (IESE) has received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Kim's successful proposal, "Trend-Mining Design - Foundations for Modeling the Mutual Influence between Pre-Life Design and End-of-Life Recovery of a Sustainable Product Portfolio," will support his emerging research in modeling the mutual influence between pre-life design and end-of-life recovery of complex, sustainable product portfolios--planning product designs for most effective reuse, recycling, or recovery of components.
For example, more than 100 million cell phones are retired each year. Less than 5% recovered, which means that most end up in a landfill, according to Kim.
“People think that returning it to Best Buy is enough,” Kim explained “But if a product’s components are not designed to be replaced or reused, it is unlikely that it can be recycled efficiently.” To make a product easy to recover, manufacturing companies first need to understand the links between product design and recovery profit and be able to evaluate which design is better than others and why.
Kim's research is aimed at establishing the mutual link between pre-life design and end-of-life recovery for a portfolio of products; characterizing the evolving, massive-scale preference/usage/recovery data that can capture dynamic trend in the design and recovery process; and optimal platforming (i.e., component sharing decision making) for pre-life portfolio design and end-of-life recovery in a simultaneous manner.
"If successful, the results will ensure that sustainable product portfolio design will be realized at a much faster pace with economic justification, as well as environmental stewardship with regulatory compliance," Kim stated. "The outcome will also provide a new business model (green and sustainable) whereby a company is compelled to close the loop of product design and recovery. This will be achieved by making recovery a part of the business model, due to its potential profitability, rather than outsourcing or ignoring it. Industrial impact will be realized with partners in product design/manufacturing, systems modeling and applications, and software and computing.
Kim earned his PhD degree at the University of Michigan in engineering system design and optimization in mechanical engineering. He joined the University of Illinois in 2005 and has been leading the Enterprise Systems Optimization Lab. Prior to joining the Illinois faculty, he held positions in research and consulting at the U.S. Army Automotive Research Center, Northwestern University, and a business-IT consulting company.
The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. Such activities should build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research. NSF encourages submission of CAREER proposals from junior faculty members at all CAREER-eligible organizations and especially encourages women, members of underrepresented minority groups, and persons with disabilities to apply.
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Contact: Harrison Kim, Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/265-9437.
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