Journal article
Combining Life Cycle Assessment and Manufacturing System Simulation: Evaluating Dynamic Impacts from Renewable Energy Supply on Product-Specific Environmental Footprints
Ramboll Foundation1
Boston Consulting Group GmbH2
Technical University of Braunschweig3
Sustainability, Department of Technology, Management and Economics, Technical University of Denmark4
Quantitative Sustainability Assessment, Sustainability, Society and Economics, Department of Technology, Management and Economics, Technical University of Denmark5
Department of Technology, Management and Economics, Technical University of Denmark6
The eco-efficiency of actual production processes is still one dominating research area in engineering. However, neglecting the environmental impacts of production equipment, technical building services and energy supply might lead to sub-optimization or burden-shifting and thus reduced effectiveness.
As an established method used in sustainability management, Life Cycle Assessment aims at calculating the environmental impacts from all life cycle stages of a product or system. In order to cope with shortcomings of the static character of life cycle models and data gaps this approach combines Life Cycle Assessment with manufacturing system simulation.
Therefore, the two life cycles of product and production system are merged to assess environmental sustainability on product level. Manufacturing simulation covers the production system and Life Cycle Assessment is needed to relate the results to the final product. This combined approach highlights the influences from dynamic effects in manufacturing systems on resulting life cycle impact from both product and production system.
Furthermore, the importance of considering indirect peripheral equipment and its effects on the manufacturing system operation in terms of output and energy demands is underlined. The environmental flows are converted into impacts for the five recommended environmental impact categories. Thus, it can be demonstrate that Life Cycle Assessment can enhance the process simulation and help identify hot-spots along the life cycle.
The combined methodology is applied for analysing a case study in fourteen scenarios for the integration of volatile energy sources into energy flexible manufacturing control.
Language: | English |
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Publisher: | Korean Society for Precision Engineering |
Year: | 2021 |
Pages: | 1007-1026 |
ISSN: | 21980810 and 22886206 |
Types: | Journal article |
DOI: | 10.1007/s40684-020-00229-z |
ORCIDs: | 0000-0001-8697-4065 and Hauschild, Michael Zwicky |
Energy fexibility Energy fexible manufacturing systems Life cycle assessment Life cycle manufacturing system simulation Manufacturing system simulation Product-specifc environmental footprints SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production SDG 13 - Climate Action SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy