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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 approach of Life-Cycle Engineering (LCE) 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. The use and the possibilities of LCE will be demonstrated with the example of three-way catalyst systems.

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.

Products and services cause different environmental problems during the different stages of their life cycle. The Life Cycle Assessment tool aims to identify possibilities to improve the environmental behavior of the systems under consideration. Herefor it is necessary to systematically collect and interpret material and energy flows for all relevant processes. The whole life cycle of a system has to be considered to prevent the neglecting or shift of possible important environmental aspects. These results have to be included in the overall decision making process. In the last years PE developed the Life Cycle Engineering approach, which consist of the dimensions LCA, Life Cycle Cost and TQM. In order to support designers, engineers and decision makers to make better informed decisions, it is necessary to perform LCA studies and economical assessments at a very early stage in product design.

Products and services cause different environmental problems during the different stages of their life cycle. The Life Cycle Assessment tool aims to identify possibilities to improve the environmental behavior of the systems under consideration. Herefor it is necessary to systematically collect and interpret material and energy flows for all relevant processes. The whole life cycle of a system has to be considered to prevent the neglecting of shift of possible important environmental aspects. In order to support designers, engineers and decision makers to make better informed decisions, it is necessary to perform LCA studies and economical assessments at a very early stage in product design. It is very well known, that the cost and environmental performance responsibility for a product lies mainly in the hand of the designers. Therefore management tools and procedures have to be found or developed to include LCA in this early stage.

An important cornerstone of our society is the individual mobility which, today, chiefly can only be offered by the automobile. However, in the industrial countries the car at the same time is exposed to harsh criticism as far as environmental pollution is discussed. Goal of this presentation is to show a scientific method by means of which environmental loads during manufacture, use and utilization/disposal of whole systems - in this special case vehicles - can be quantified and optimized. In order to do this, the instrument of life cycle analysis of parts and processes is used and in the same way the scientific method is developed beyond the level of literature. Due to these modifications the results are only useful if the boundary conditions are mentioned in detail. Considerations on the system such as the examination of an automobile require a method extended by essential criteria due to its complexity.