1,721,011 research outputs found
Methods and tools for reducing food waste in the household environment
Full text linkIl “Food Waste” nell’Unione Europea ammonta a circa 89 milioni di tonnellate per anno di cui il 42% proviene dall’ambiente domestico. È stato, inoltre, stimato che il 60% di quest’ultimo è evitabile sensibilizzando il consumatore finale e incentivandolo all’adozione di migliori abitudini alimentari che consentono, tra l‘altro, di ridurre i problemi di salute e obesità.
A tal proposito, numerosi sforzi sono stati dedicati dal mondo scientifico e industriale al riuso degli scarti delle industrie alimentari, allo sviluppo di nuovi sistemi per la gestione dei rifiuti e al lancio di campagne di sensibilizzazione dei cittadini. Tuttavia, metodi e strumenti in grado di aiutare il consumatore finale a previvere lo spreco sono ancora carenti.
In questo contesto, l’obiettivo della ricerca, svolta in collaborazione con la Indesit Company, è stato quello di studiare e sviluppare un sistema integrato in grado di ridurre lo spreco di cibo nell’ambiente domestico e migliorare lo stile di vita dell’utente finale, in termini di salute e benessere.
In particolare, è stata sviluppata un’applicazione web e una serie di servizi correlati in grado di guidare il consumatore finale nella corretta conservazione degli alimenti, supportarlo nella gestione degli acquisti e suggerire le ricette che necessitano di ingredienti in scadenza e meglio soddisfano i suoi requisiti nutrizionali. Questo è stato possibile grazie alla parallela realizzazione di un frigorifero connesso dotato di un lettore NFC in grado di leggere le informazioni contenute in specifici “tag” da applicare sulla confezione dei prodotti. Ciò consente di avere a disposizione un inventario aggiornato degli alimenti presenti in casa e tracciarne le scadenze.
Le potenzialità del sistema proposto sono state valutate analizzandone l’usabilità e i benefici in termini di impatto ambientale ed economico. Infine, l’effettiva integrazione del sistema in un ecosistema più ampio ha permesso di valutarne anche l’interoperabilità.The total quantity of food waste in the European Union has been estimated at around 89 million tonnes per year of which about 42% is thrown out by households. Furthermore, it has been esteemed that the 60% of the latter would be avoidable by increasing users’ awareness and encouraging them to adopt better eating habits, which also allow reducing the health and obesity problems.
For this reason, several attempts have been dedicated by the scientific and industrial world to the reuse of food industries wastes, the development of systems for a more efficient waste management and the launch of campaigns to attract interest of citizens on this issue. However, methods and tools able to support consumers to prevent the waste are still lacking.
In this context, the goal of the present research work, carried out in collaboration with the Indesit Company, consists in the study and development of an integrate system able to reduce the household food waste and improve the end-users lifestyle in terms of health and wellbeing.
In particular, a web application and a set of related services have been developed to guide the user in the proper storage of food, support him/her in the purchase planning and suggest the recipes that better satisfy his/her energy and nutritional requirements and need ingredients close to expire.
Such result was possible thanks to the development of a smart fridge equipped with a NFC reader that allows reading specific NFC tags that the user can configure according to the food information. This allows having an updated stocks inventory and tracking the products expirations.
The potentialities of the system has been evaluated from the usability, environmental and economic point of view. Finally, the system integration in a wider smart ecosystem allowed also evaluating its interoperability
Driving Process Innovation: A Structured Method for Improving Efficiency in SMEs
No full textAbstractThis paper proposes a method to drive process innovation toward the increase in efficiency of a production plant.The work defines a structured method, supported by a classification tool, to correctly organize whole plant information with a mayor focus on energy consumptions. The method was tested in a medium enterprise with the target to increase the efficiency of the entire production plant. The method is the basis for a web application tool. A correct data management permits to plan the best practices to improve processes and systems involved in terms of environmental and economic impacts, meaning a process sustainable innovation
Web-based platform for eco-sustainable supply chain management
No full textThe increasing focus on environmental practices has led academia and industry to address eco-sustainability in different ways. Recent improvements to supply chain management (SCM) have also included environmental sustainability as a key factor, in addition to common drivers such as risk, supply quality, and cost. Although several eco-sustainable SCM approaches have been proposed, often those solutions remain too theoretical and difficult to implement. This paper contributes to this research topic by proposing a web-based platform capable of tracing suppliers and related processes along the entire product supply chain (SC). This platform is a powerful decision-making tool for improving overall SC environmental sustainability. A structured methodology is defined and implemented that can efficiently model complex SCs, share data between actors, and measure its environmental sustainability. To demonstrate the platform applicability and validate its effectiveness in industrial settings, a case study of industrial partners involved in the production of leather shoes is provided
Consumers vs Internet of Things: A Systematic Evaluation Process to Drive Users in the Smart World
Full text linkAbstractSmart Objects (SOs) market offers a wide variety of products apparently similar but characterized by different features that the average users fail to perceive. Consequently, their purchasing is often based on price and brand affection. In this context, users need a tool able to guide them in choosing the most suitable object to satisfy their expectations. To this purpose, this paper proposes a new systematic method to assess SOs in a comprehensive way: it allows to objectively assess and compare products and provides evaluation results tailored on users’ needs. A first validation is carried out on three different SO typologies
Life cycle assessment of a leather shoe supply chain
No full textThe fashion industry is responsible for a significant contribution to environmental pressure in the European Union. The present study aims to quantify the environmental impacts of a leather shoe production chain and identify the most criticalities in terms of companies, processes, and materials. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology was used to assess the impacts related to the production of a pair of classic man leather shoes. Slaughtering and tanning resulted in the less environmentally sustainable stages for almost all the analysed impact categories, except water resource depletion and ozone layer depletion. Such outcomes are mainly due to the high distance from animals’ skin suppliers to slaughterhouses and tanneries, the use of lorries transport, and the large use of unsustainable chemicals to treat the leather. Going downstream, the main hot spot refers to the use of cotton during upper manufacturing and shoe assembly and finishing. Three alternative realistic production scenarios were simulated to find the best sustainable mix. They focused on alternative means of transport, the substitution of cotton, and green purchasing of upper and lining. An environmental impact reduction of about 30% can be obtained if all the suggested scenarios are implemented
Design of Sustainable Smart Homes for Elderly
No full textDesigning sustainable systems is challenging since economic, environmental and social factors must be considered. It is particularly hard when heavy interaction with humans take place. The smart home is an example: it is finalized to increase the comfort of dwellings and optimize the devices’ behaviour as well as the consumed resources in relation to the users’ habits. Elderly represent a special category of users characterized by specific needs: therefore, the design of a smart home is particularly critical since elderly require support in their everyday activities, control of their own lifestyle monitoring, and consciousness about the devices’ behaviours. As a consequence, smart home are usually complicated, expensive and not suitable for elderly. This paper defines a methodology to design sustainable smart home systems for elderly. An intelligent network monitoring the users’ wellbeing and assuring a controlled use of objects and resources is defined and verified on a case study
Optimizing the operator posture by a smart workplace design
No full textThe fourth industrial revolution emphasizes the need for an approach centered on human factors as a cornerstone of the production cycle. The link between ergonomics and enabling technologies of industry 4.0 becomes increasingly stronger, incorporating both the cultural and the technical aspects. The design of the workplace must pursue its adaptability to the various elements of the work system to guarantee the psychophysical well-being of man, safety, and performance. This paper proposes a model to optimize the operator's posture naturally and dynamically. The model considers the characteristics of the operator, the product, and the task and by applying the ergonomic principles and the technological constraints it determines the optimal position of the product. It aims to minimize both the ergonomic risk and the distance with the postural attitude of the operator. The case study demonstrates the implementation of the model in a smart machine and the benefits that can be obtained in terms of the prevention of musculoskeletal disorders
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