Towards Standards-Based Generation of Reusable Life Cycle Inventory Data Models for Manufacturing Processes

Published

November 13, 2018

Author(s)

Michael P. Brundage, David J. Lechevalier, Katherine C. Morris

Abstract

The production stage of a product's life cycle can significantly contribute to its overall environmental impact. Estimates of environmental impact for a product are typically produced using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods. These methods rely on LCI data containing impact estimates of manufacturing processes and other operations that contribute to a product's creation. The accuracy of LCI data is critical for quality assessments; however, this data is often insufficient in the types and varieties of manufacturing processes covered and is often only a coarse estimate of actual impacts. At the same time, much manufacturing research focuses on how to model, measure, assess, and reduce the environmental impacts of manufacturing processes. Recent standards emerging from ASTM International define a structured format for presenting these studies in a reusable way. In this paper, we investigate the potential for using the ASTM format to generate LCI datasets suitable to perform LCA by mapping from the ASTM standard into the widely-adopted ecoSpold2 format. A process is presented for generating LCI datasets from ASTM models, and overlaps and gaps between the two standards are identified.

Citation

ASME Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

sustainable manufacturing, Life cycle assessment, unit manufacturing process modeling

Citation

Brundage, M. , Lechevalier, D. and Morris, K. (2018), Towards Standards-Based Generation of Reusable Life Cycle Inventory Data Models for Manufacturing Processes, ASME Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=926197 (Accessed April 23, 2024)