ABSTRACT
The primary objective of design activity consists of translating an idea into a product and then incorporating the set of needs that this product must satisfy into detailed design. In the development of new products today, the designer must achieve this transformation while taking account of an ever-greater range of requisites, not solely functional (time to market, profi tability, reliability, safety, recyclability), which arise in relation to the diverse life cycle phases the product must pass through. The principal diffi culty inherent in a design intervention of this type lies in the fact that the most effective choices concerning a single requirement often confl ict with other aspects of this wide-ranging problem.
