Introduction

Product development is an interdisciplinary area that includes all major disciplines of engineering-sciences and technologies, psychology, economics as well as creative arts and design. Last few decades are witness to the tremendous change in product development methodologies and processes. The variety of products available in the market also has risen exponentially. The useful life of the product has gone down considerably from few years a decade earlier to few months now.

The industry is flooded with products aimed at satisfying the varied customer base. The competitive edge that one product gets to-day is sooner or later is taken over by another competitor and this an on-going process. The positive aspect of this process is better satisfaction of the end user, however it also results environmental issues regarding overuse of resources and disposal of the product. In this changed scenario, it is appropriate to relook into the whole product development process. There is a strong need to revisit the principles associated with product development, the resource-optimization process, the product-standardization process, and the economics of the product development from the point of view of sustainability. Sustainability is a challenge around the globe and the proposed conference will look into it in the context of product development. The existing technologies as well as newer technologies are to be relooked in the context of sustainable product development.

Energy efficiency and availability of greener energy is another important aspect that needs to be explored for product- sustainability. In brief the entire gambit of product development activity is the scope of the conference.