Product Life Cycle Oriented Evaluation of Manufacturing Technologies

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Fritz Klocke
• Subject Area: Production Systems, Operations Management, Quality Management and Factory Planning
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 314860795

Usually the evaluation and selection of manufacturing technologies is carried out regarding their capability to meet the design requirements and their economic efficiency during production. Furthermore, various existing models and methods from the field of life cycle assessment (LCA) enable an ecological evaluation of products and manufacturing technologies in particular cases like cases in automotive or aerospace industry. Whereas, no methodology exists to conduct a life cycle assessment of manufacturing technologies for the manufacturing of milling tools considering several stages of life. Thus, the objective of this research project is the development of a new methodology that enables an life cycle assessment of manufacturing technologies for milling tool production. On the basis of the generic methodology model according to Jenke, a methodology consists of methods, models and a system, which are developed in the underlying research project. Firstly, a description model for the scope definition of the case of the milling tool is developed according to the first phase of the LCA. Secondly, the development of a new information maturity level model is conducted to consider the uncertainty of the information used during the LCA systematically. In the steps that follow, the relations between the customer-, functional-, physical- and process domain are quantified and the life cycle inventory analysis for the different stages of life of the milling tool are drawn up. In the next step, a new target system is developed, which enables a evaluation of several stages of life and will be used for the impact assessment during the LCA. Next, the methodology is implemented in a software model prototypical. This should allow a calculation of the environmental impact of alternative manufacturing technologies for milling tool production. Finally, one holistic methodology is deduced by the development of a structure model and the methodology is validated at case of the milling tool.The methodology reveals new findings with major scientific importance regarding the environmental impact of manufacturing technologies on several stages of life of milling tools. The high economical-technical importance of the research becomes apparent in present efforts in industry and legislator for products manufactured sustainably. For the sustainability as well as for environmental impact of products the manufacturing technologies used in the production stage are of great importance. Especially, products made of tungsten carbides gaining importance due to the rising prices of tungsten and cobalt, which is a consequence of increasing scarcity of resources in the last years.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants