First Approach to a Theoretical Framework for Carbon Footprint Management in the Aerospace Manufacturing Industry

Abstract

Reducing CO2 emissions from aircraft and other artifacts, as well as minimizing the environmental footprint during their manufacture, is one of the current challenges facing the aerospace industry. This implies that all manufacturing companies related to the industry are faced with the need to implement strategies to manage and control emissions during their supply chain. Under this scenario arises the proposal of a conceptual framework integrated in a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) environment based on the digital control of manufacturing, oriented to the fulfillment of carbon emission reduction objectives. The theoretical proposal is based on the use of an industrial Digital Twin (DT), combining the use of a digital model, a physical model, a CO2 model, and a life cycle analysis (LCA) module. Those models work in an integrated way to estimate and control the carbon footprint with the goal of being able to reduce it. This study seeks to discern which are the appropriate measurement parameters in the CO2 model. Starting from the proposed combined measures of manufacturing activities, support tasks, management tasks and industry suppliers. That will allow estimating the carbon footprint produced in the manufacture of each part through an LCA database.