Disclosed is a computer-aided product designing assistant apparatus and method for assisting designing of an environmentally conscious product by presenting at least one design guideline to be adopted in designing the environmental counscious product. The apparatus comprises: a database storing a plurality of design guidelines for each product and evaluation values assigned to each design guideline in relation to a plurality of environmental issues and a plurality of phases defining a life cycle of products, the evaluation values assigned to each design guideline being capable of indicating an effectiveness of each design guideline in resolving each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle, each environmental issue respectively representing an issue to be resolved in order to reduce environmental load due to each product; and a processing unit for determining a relative importance level of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle for a product to be designed, selecting at least one design guideline for the product to be designed from said plurality of design guidelines stored in the database according to the evaluation values stored in the database and the relative importance level of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle determined for the product to be designed, and presenting said at least one design guideline selected for the product to be designed.
This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C. .sctn. 120 from U.S. Ser. No. 09/321,545, filed on May 28, 1999, and under 35 U.S.C. .sctn. 119 from Japanese Patent Application No. 11-026581, filed February 3, 1999, the entire contents of each of which are incorporated herein by reference.
