Life Cycle Management A Solution for Decision Making in the Global Market 940575

Environmental issues continue to impact operations in the auto industry. With the introduction of the new Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA), a new emphasis away from traditional command and control regulations towards technology driven regulations has begun. Innovative ways of meeting the new regulations are more essential than ever before. The Life Cycle Management (LCM) approach combines sound environmental decision-making with good business practices. This management approach focuses on the total cost impact of a decision throughout the entire life of the product, process and material. LCM concentrates its efforts up front at the product's developmental stage where 80% of all cost savings can be gained.

LCM is not a formula for success. It is an approach which stimulates corporate cultural changes to produce quality, environmental friendly products at the lowest total cost. It provides the means to address environmental costs, once viewed as an overhead cost, as a true product and/or process cost. This new cost serves as the catalyst for a transition from a reactive to a proactive environmental program. LCM allows managers and decision makers to view air and water emissions along with solid waste disposal as lost profits and non-value added cost burdens to both product and plant. This approach forges a strong bond between design and manufacturing that did not previously exist in the auto industry to meet regulatory requirements by examining all product costs. It preserves our agility to manufacture under stricter environmental regulations without a loss of quality or increase in non-value cost to the customer. At Chrysler, LCM has become a natural extension of our platform approach to building cars and trucks. To compete in the global market place, U.S. manufacturing corporations must accept and utilize LCM principles. The regulatory impact on our domestic industry will become more restrictive on those corporations that fail to accept change and will eventually eliminate them from the global market-place regardless of their past performance or size.