MIVES multi-criteria framework to sustainability index of design for manufacture and assembly

Embracing sustainable strategies that consider Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) has become a rapidly growing trend in urban development. Continued uncertainty on the sustainability assessment of design could drive a series of indecisive decision-making among design alternatives, further disrupting the potential opportunities toward sustainable DfMA. However, there is a lack of research on sustainable design assessments for DfMA and establishing a sustainable index. This research establishes an integrated value model for the sustainability assessment framework and DfMA sustainability index to address this challenge. This model integrates Building Information Modelling (BIM) with MIVES, a customisable Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) tool. The pilot case of this framework is the retrofit of a commercial building’s façade system, which demonstrated the capability of the proposed framework. Data collection and analysis include the comparisons between five design alternatives. This research furthers previous studies and has three-fold significance: 1) Establishing reasonable multi-criteria for the sustainable DfMA indices; 2) Adapting the MIVES approach for comparative analysis across three building phases to make it compatible with DfMA; 3) developing a quantitative analysis method for sustainable design assessment of DfMA in the construction industry.