Search Results

Mercedes-Benz at DaimlerChrysler has been developing and applying Life-Cycle-Engineering (LCE) and Life-Cycle-Assessment (LCA) since almost 10 years. Extensive experience and know-how has been gained by several complete car LCAs and more than 100 LCAs for parts. According to our experience LCA/LCE is most effectively and efficiently used to support the development of new products, i.e. as a tool for Design for the Environment. The concept and implementation of Design for Environment (DfE) at Mercedes-Benz will be introduced. Both, concept and implementation are the result of several years of development. Nowadays, DfE is established as common practice and fully integrated in the Mercedes-Benz Development Process. This approach is illustrated by the exemplary case study of the recent C-Class model. The parameters assessed during the development process include hazardous materials, use of recycled materials, use of renewable materials and others.

Mercedes-Benz at DaimlerChrysler has been developing and applying Life-Cycle-Engineering (LCE) and Life-Cycle-Assessment (LCA) since almost 10 years. Extensive experience and know-how has been gained by two complete car LCAs and more than 100 LCAs for parts. According to our experience LCA/LCE is most effectively and efficiently used to support the development of new products. One of DaimlerChrysler's Environmental Guidelines includes a statement, that our approach to environmentally acceptable design covers the entire product spectrum of the DaimlerChrysler Group, taking into account the product life cycle from design through disposal or recycling. The organisation of environmental management at DaimlerChrysler has a distinct structure of tasks: the central Environmental Protection Division coordinates all organisation/ plant related aspects, while all product related aspects are the responsibility of the divisonal business units.

The automobile painting is a very energy and emission (solvents) intensive process step in the production of automobiles with regard to the small amount of paint applied to the car body. The awareness has risen that cleaner production technologies must substitute end-of-pipe control technologies. If these technologies strive for being a competitive option in corporate decision-making process, not only their environmental but also their technical and economical performance has to be on the same or better level compared to conventional technologies. The approach of Life-Cycle Engineering (LCE) by PE and IKP investigates technical, environmental and economical aspects of products and technologies. It is developed to a simulation tool to analyse weak points and optimisation potentials as well as to support product and technology development in the painting industry.

The total life cycle approach makes use of data for various sub-systems and modules to describe the relevance of a defined system under consideration. The different processes and steps take place in several locations. The life cycle approach is an assessment tool beyond this spatial dimension. Often these basic information is not available any more or never has been considered as valuable. By this, different emission sources and different receiving environments are simply neglected by summing up for the total life cycle contributions. The spatial dimension is of outstanding importance for the determination of relevance and meaning of environmental burdens. A more advanced life cycle concept should cover this. Besides the spatial differentiation within on product system, life cycle consideration are also often used to compare different production sites.

LCA studies aim at an integrating system assessment as a comprehensive and holistic approach to prevent tradeoffs and guide users and decision makers for better informed decisions. The total life cycle approach aims at informing and supporting decision making and management support. LCA, like other management techniques as well, has inherent limitations, making choices, assumptions etc. inevitable. Before using the findings of life cycle studies, a consideration of those uncertainties, the effects of value choices and assumptions, as well as the inherent data inaccuracies must be examined in more detail. Traditional error and uncertainty analysis failed in practical use due to the specific system modeling, the data availability and the respective data collection procedures in life cycle studies. New approaches to identify and understand the system specific uncertainties are necessary for this purpose.

Process and material innovations are not any longer motivated only by cost-reduction potentials. Corporate decision-making processes will be more and more broadened to evaluate new technologies with regard to their technical, economical and environmental performance. Therefore, innovations have to be at least on the same, if developing potentials are feasible, or better level compared to existing technologies using this holistic view. The approach of Life-Cycle Engineering (LCE) by IKP and PE investigates technical, environmental and economical aspects of products and technologies to analyze weak points and optimization potentials as well as to support product and technology development. Design for the Environment is an important application of LCE and will be discussed for automotive painting concepts.

The international standardisation of Environmental Management (EM) is documented by the ISO 14000 series. Within this series a number of Environmental Management tools are treated. Therefore, it can be seen as a ‘toolbox’ which offers several options for sound Environmental Management practices in organisations. However, a number of questions remain because they are not treated by the standards themselves. Some examples are, which of the tools should be applied to what kind of Environmental Management problem or what are the synergisms and antagonisms between these tools. To illustrate the importance of a comprehensive choice and a compatible approach towards EM-tools, Life-Cycle-Assessment (ISO 14040 series) is discussed in the context of Environmental Management Systems (ISO 14001). The focus of ISO 14001 are organisations, while LCA deals with products or processes.

The automobile painting is a very energy and emission (solvents) intensive process step in the production of automobiles with regard to the small amount of paint applied to the car body. The awareness has risen that cleaner production technologies must substitute end-of-pipe control technologies. If these technologies strive for being a competitive option in corporate decision-making process, not only their environmental but also their technical and economical performance has to be on the same or better level compared to conventional technologies. The approach of Life-Cycle Engineering (LCE) by IKP and PE investigates technical, environmental and economical aspects of products and technologies to analyze weak points and optimization potentials as well as to support product and technology development. LCE methodology was applied to the comparison of 1K, 2K, waterborne and powder clear coat systems for automobile painting in a multi-client project.