Correlational investigation of manufacturing technology and environmental impact in an agricultural machinery industry

Abstract

<p>There is a relation between the environmental impacts to the high emissions in the environment and the natural resources depletion, which can be measured with the useful life of the products, affected by the manufacturing technologies and the sustainable development. In this background, the present article aims to evaluate the environmental impact generated by the manufacturing technology in an agricultural machinery industry, in the grain trailer production, regarding the lifecycle from the cradle to the gate. The study consists in a practical adoption in the industry, where the product and the production flow were identified, the inventory analysis was performed and later the environmental impact was evaluated, considering three categories of ending damage (endpoint): human health, ecosystem and the scarcity of resources, in addition to twenty-two environmental impact categories (midpoint). There is a strong correlation among the use of carbon steel and stainless, the laser machining process and the environmental impact, where the human health damage category is the most impacted in the carbon dioxide element, gas associated to the greenhouse effect. The consumerism of the natural resources for the energy generation is the category which most affected in the scarcity of the fossil resources.</p>