Influence of the Multiple Life Cycles on the Environmental Impact of a Product
Year: 2009
Editor: Norell Bergendahl, M.; Grimheden, M.; Leifer, L.; Skogstad, P.; Lindemann, U.
Author: Tchertchian, Nicolas; Liang, Haining; Millet, Dominique
Series: ICED
Section: Design for X, Design to X
Page(s): 185-196
Abstract
One of the design problems of B2C products results from their increasingly short lifespan. The technological changes, associated with the evolutions of use, lead the companies indeed to renew their ranges more and more early. This tendency generates waste more and more, while some components are thrown quickly they could be used in new generations of products; the remanufacturing appears of this fact as a promising solution. However, the remanufacturing can be economically and environmentally beneficial only if the product and its life cycle are designed by taking account of the value, the nature and lifespan of the modules to be re-used, and the lifespan of the product. This article proposes an approach of green design of reusable modules with environmental and economic evaluations covering Multiples Life Cycles (MLC). We introduce into this article the parameters of number of cycle, duration of cycle and the number of reusable modules. This approach was tested within the framework of a comparison of 3 espresso machines. This test made it possible to show that the product decomposition in module with MLC for reusable modules have a better environmental and economic performance.
Keywords: Remanufacturing, Multiples Life Cycles, Modularization, LCA.