Product development is affected by uncertainties due to changing customer requirements, changing regulations, technological developments, long lead times, high product complexities, and geopolitical issues. Automation, increased flexibility of production, and reduced lead times are drivers that allow product development to be competitive in this scenario. Design engineers should be aware of production capabilities to facilitate early producibility assessments and to avoid late changes. Production preparation is identified as an important activity in the product development process, whereby the producibility of a product is assessed. In this thesis, the current state of production preparation during product development is investigated and a method is introduced supporting production preparation using production requirements. The work was carried out using the design research methodology framework and comprised four studies based on the four steps of the framework. The research clarification and descriptive study 1 phases aimed at developing understanding and were done by means of data collection at the companies through interviews and document studies. The next two steps were prescriptive study and descriptive study 2, which aimed at developing and evaluating the support. This was done through observation, workshops, and solution development. The production preparation process is supported by Design for Manufacturing and Assembly, failure mode and effects analysis, lesson-learnt documents, and computer-aided design, and the efficiency of the process is dependent on individual skills and knowledge. Tools to support common understanding, remove ambiguity in requirements, and enable collaboration between design and production engineers are needed. The developed method allows for the identification, definition, structuring, and sharing of production requirements, aligning with varying maturities of product and production systems during product development. This helps improve the collaboration between design and production engineers for production preparation.

Product development and production operate in a shifting landscape of regulations, technologies, customer needs, high product complexity and variety. While product development and production drive prosperity, they also generate waste, consume energy and materials, and contribute to negative sustainability impacts. Manufacturing firms, therefore, need proactive strategies and means to consider producibility and sustainability without sacrificing profitability. Realising these requires co‑development of product and production, with design engineers understanding production capabilities. To align stakeholders and steer both product development and production towards competitiveness and sustainability, the deployment of requirements is critical. This thesis aims to develop an understanding of and support for integrating production and sustainability requirements for product and production co-development. The work was carried out in two descriptive and prescriptive iterations using the design research methodology framework. The first iteration focused on production requirements and the second on sustainability requirements. Seven studies, published as seven papers, were conducted using methods such as literature reviews, interviews, observations, document studies and workshops. These studies showed that production and sustainability requirements are usually embedded in the product development process and supported by a large variety of methods and tools. However, most methods focused on design engineers, provided less support for production engineers, and relied on individual knowledge. Two methods were developed to address this and support co-development – one for production requirements and the other for sustainability requirements. These methods are complementary, as there is an overlap between production and sustainability requirements for co-development. In addition, this thesis contributes by presenting a systematic process for working with both sets of requirements, thus supporting production engineers in their requirement specification by providing collaboration mechanisms and process models for integrating sustainability with technical and business criteria.

Produktutveckling och produktion sker i ett föränderligt landskap av regleringar, teknologier, kundbehov samt hög produktkomplexitet och produktvariation. Samtidigt som produktutveckling och produktion driver välstånd, genereras det också avfall, förbrukas energi och material samt bidrag till negativa hållbarhetseffekter. Tillverkningsföretag behöver därför proaktiva strategier och metoder för att beakta både producerbarhet och hållbarhet utan att ge avkall på lönsamhet. Att realisera detta kräver samordnad utveckling av produkter och produktion, där konstruktörer förstår de faktiska produktionsförhållandena. För att samordna intressenter och styra både produktutveckling och produktion mot konkurrenskraft och hållbarhet är systematisk användning av krav avgörande. Denna avhandling syftar till att utveckla förståelse för och stöd till integration av produktions- och hållbarhetskrav vid samordnad utveckling av produkter och produktion. Arbetet genomfördes i två deskriptiva och preskriptiva iterationer med stöd av Design Research Methodology. Första iterationen fokuserade på produktionskrav och andra på hållbarhetskrav. Sju studier, publicerade som artiklar, genomfördes med stöd av olika metoder såsom litteraturöversikter, intervjuer, observationer, dokumentstudier och workshops. Studierna visade att både produktionskrav och hållbarhetskrav vanligtvis är inkluderade i produktutvecklingsprocessen och stöds av ett stort antal metoder och verktyg. De flesta metoder fokuserade dock på konstruktörer och gav mindre stöd till produktionsingenjörer samt var beroende av individuell kunskap. För att överbrygga detta och stödja samordning utvecklades två metoder - en för produktionskrav och en för hållbarhetskrav. Det är ett överlapp mellan produktionskrav och hållbarhetskrav i samordnad utveckling och metoderna komplimenterar varandra. Dessutom bidrar avhandlingen med en systematisk process för att arbeta med båda kravmängderna, vilket stödjer produktionsingenjörer i deras arbete med krav genom att tillhandahålla samarbetsmekanismer och processmodeller för att integrera hållbarhet med tekniska och affärsmässiga kriterier.