Life-cycle engineering: Issues, tools and research

Abstract

Life-cycle engineering (LCE) is a decision-making methodology that considers performance, environmental and cost requirements for the duration of a product. This methodology is becoming a norm for global companies that want to remain competitive. To facilitate and enhance the application of LCE methodology to industrial products, a number of computer tools or utilities that require minimal user input, and hence run automatically in the background of the design process, have been developed. These utilities are intended to provide a feedback on an evolving design without impeding or hampering the design process. There exists a need to continue research on the development of tools that simulate flows in a life-cycle and optimize them. These tools should be based on the client -server model base on the Internet to facilitate the e-Transition.

Ecodesign methods focused on remanufacturing

“…The activities under the scope of Life cycle Engineering are related to the application of technological and scientific principles to the design and manufacturing of products, aiming to protect the environment including resource conservation, while encouraging economic progress, optimizing the product life cycle and minimizing pollution and waste [7,10].…”

A Life Cycle Engineering model for technology selection: a case study on plastic injection moulds for low production volumes

“…The analysis of the technical, economic and environmental performance provides a solid foundation for designers to understand the tradeoffs and implications of product design alternatives [14,15]. Having in mind that decisions made at the design stage influence between 70 and 85% of the total cost of the product [7,14,18] as well as the total environmental impact and its technical performance [15,19], several tools have been developed to support effective and informed decisions at that stage.…”

“…As Keys [12] points out the research in LCE challenges the academic world because it is problem focused and requires a multidisciplinary approach. In fact, the LCE philosophy can be also called Designing for the Life Cycle, to emphasize the need to consider from the early product concept its complete projected life, including market research, design phases, manufacturing processes, qualification, reliability aspects and customer service/maintainability/ supportability issues [12][13][14]. To develop increasingly sophisticated products (systems or facilities) in shorter timeframes is a main challenge and can be better achieved by a holistic understanding of products and processes life cycle [7,13].…”

“…Having in mind that decisions made at the design stage influence between 70 and 85% of the total cost of the product [7,14,18] as well as the total environmental impact and its technical performance [15,19], several tools have been developed to support effective and informed decisions at that stage. The aim of these tools is to fulfil total or partially the LCE goal as defined by Jeswiet [20]: ''engineering activities involving the application of technological and scientific principles to the design and manufacture of products with the goal of environment protection and resources conserving, while encouraging economic progress, keeping in mind the need for sustainability, and at the same time optimizing the product life cycle and minimizing pollution and waste''.…”

An Analytic Network Process approach for the environmental aspect selection problem — A case study for a hand blender

“…Examples include Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA), Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA), Material Flow Analysis (MFA), and Ecological Footprint (Wanyama et al, 2003;Karlsson and Luttropp, 2006;Finnveden et al, 2009;Pigosso et al, 2010).…”