Eco-design tools within product development processes of automotive companies and lessons learned from their experience

Abstract

Over the past years, the scientific community has payed increasing attention to the integration of Eco-design in product development processes. In spite of this, Eco-design practices within mainstream manufacturing companies has proven to be scarce. A great share of the literature has focused on the development and improvement of Eco-design tools from a theoretical perspective. A more practical perspective, including companies’ point of view, allow us to identify bottlenecks or improvement potential only visible for practitioners, such as the compatibility of tools with companies’ current procedures, time and data constraints, or guidance provided by output mechanisms. This thesis reviews a set of Eco-design tools adopted or developed by three automotive companies (BMW AG, VW AG and AB Volvo) with decades of experience in Eco-design. The extensive literature review aims at combining and integrating the observed best practices into a model that offers guidance on how to incorporate Eco-design into product development processes of less experienced companies. The model presents an iterative process comprised of three phases: impact assessment, definition of action, and management and control. The impact assessment phase consists of the analysis of hotspots and the comparison of design alternatives. The results from the impact assessment then lead to the definition of improvement actions. Actions that are agreed through team dialogues among different departments of the company which are selected according to a prioritization process to find the right balance between aspects, such as costs, product functionality, customer preference, current and future policy compliance or corporative image. Once impact results are translated into technical targets, the management and control phase ensures that employees are designated to supervise the implementation of actions, report possible rebound effects and inform about the findings that become the knowledge foundation of future projects. The automotive experience also reveals that LCA represents the cornerstone of the three companies in the integration of Eco-design practices, but it is noteworthy that LCA approaches are recognized to be dependent on other indispensable tools. From the observed experience, the LCA studies are conducted in a form that are too dependent on the product system of preceding versions of the product, which often limits radical innovation and rather results in small incremental improvement. In combination with LCA, systematic team dialogues between different knowledge fields shall contribute to the creation of collective knowledge. An appropriate arena that allows experts to reflect on impact results and explore innovative improvement opportunities, out of the scope of LCA practitioners.