Holistic Product Analysis within Technological Changes, as Instrument for Product Sustainability Improvement

Abstract

The presented research approach is oriented toward the general problem of industrial products sustainability and the idea of extending the product maturity stage within the Product Lifecycle is more specifically targeted. As strategic solution in this sense, the intervention in later stages of product lifecycle and not only in early stages of product development is proposed. More particularly, a holistic product analysis upon such technological changes, as valuable instrument for product sustainability improvement, is subjected to study in the paper. Béhars principles for Holistic Product Design are translated as criteria for alternative product analysis within the research approach. As case study, the paper solves the problem of a comparative holistic analysis upon two industrial technologies for some particular automotive spare part, respectively for two clutch housing solutions. The two analyzed technologies consider, as first variant, the clutch housing manufactured as single body part machined from a cast aluminium alloy blank and as replacing variant, the clutch housing manufactured as assembled product from a formed sheet metal cover and three machined aluminium alloy segments. An economic efficiency analysis and a LCIA approach with the evaluation of the EI99 scores have been also developed for the considered technological change process and the obtained results are included in the paper. Finally, some adequate conclusions of the research approach are presented, oriented mainly in the direction of the impact of the technological changes upon the product sustainability improvement, criteria such as producer economic vitality, environment damage or social impact being discussed.