Year: 2022
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: In recent years, an increasing number of legislations have mandated environmental impact evaluations of products from a life cycle perspective. This study applies a discrete-event simulation-based life cycle assessment to study the environmental consequences that respond to system configuration changes in production processes. The proposed method allows capturing the dynamic links in production processes, which is lacking in conventional static LCA modelling. This approach is demonstrated via a real-world case study of a Swedish foundry production line, where its environmental impacts’ hotspots are identified. These environmental consequences are further analyzed to link to the respective production decision domains for providing suggestions on potential improvements. This study demonstrates the value of combining DES and LCA for revealing the hidden environmental consequences of production processes that are difficult to uncover with traditional LCA studies. Moreover, the strengths and difficulties of the proposed method are also discussed.
DOI: 10.3233/atde220611
Authors: Yu Liu, Anna Syberfeldt
Institution: University of Skövde
Language: English
Subfield: Environmental Engineering
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4308935594