Green PLM: business goals-oriented algorithm assessing the greenness of a product in the new product development phase for the automotive industry

Abstract

Sustainability-oriented new product development process is becoming of key importance in many sectors of the industry. Especially in the automotive industry, it plays a major role as this sector is historically associated with resource-intensive production and fossil fuel consumption, and thus has to implement solutions that will contribute to restraint of climate change. Manufacturing companies are currently faced with the challenge of adapting their business models to changing market expectations and requirements resulting from the sustainable development path. Moreover, the development of the new digital factories and pressure from the legislators require adjustment of existing Product Lifecycle Management systems. To enhance the concept of the Green Product Lifecycle Management which is still under development, in this work we propose a new three-step methodology composed of three main steps: (1) assessing indicators’ importance for sustainable business goals and business models, (2) assessing indicators and their importance in the automotive industry, (3) assessing “greenness” of the product. This complex approach is innovative as it is based on the business-oriented perspective. Selecting suitable business goals and corresponding business models leads to the selection of the appropriate subset of green indicators. Several more aspects are taken into account in this holistic analysis: the indicator's features, relevance for the company, importance to sustainable business goals, importance in terms of subsectors of the automotive industry as well as environmental, economic, and social impact. This approach enables the company to compute the value of the greenness of the product in reference to the key green indicators.