Leveraging Product Development for a Sustainable Future: Energy and Resource Efficiency in Lifecycle Analysis

Abstract

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and eco-efficiency analysis are powerful tools to support the lifecycle engineering and to become a part of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). This paper presents an approach of the implementation of LCA tools as fully integrated within the PLM supporting the design engineer in terms of sharing relevant product data across modules and lifecycle phases, thereby reducing the overall amount of data management related work performed by engineers and increasing data availability. In a case study the capabilities of an existing LCA solution are examined and presented at the example of a wheeled excavator.