E3 – Production

The Fraunhofer I2-method allows quantifying the resource need of a product before determining the construction parameters. In this way, the resource efficiency of a product will be optimized and im­proved. The product design is assessed with regard to resource efficiency by combining Computer-Aided Design (CAD), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) soft­ware. By simulating the expected material-, energy-, waste and emission flows over the entire product life cycle relevant information is generated, which can be included in the product design. In a first step, suitable materials and potential manufacturing procedures will be defined for the product, which suggest a variety of appropriate combinations. Subsequently, the resource efficiency of the product variants will be determined by conducting an LCA analysis. On the basis of this assessment the most efficient solutions will then be pre-selected.

Keywords: Resource optimization, PLM, CAD

Project by Fraunhofer IBP, Fraunhofer IWU