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Process and material innovations are not any longer motivated only by cost-reduction potentials. Corporate decision-making processes will be more and more broadened to evaluate new technologies with regard to their technical, economical and environmental performance. Therefore, innovations have to be at least on the same, if developing potentials are feasible, or better level compared to existing technologies using this holistic view. The approach of Life-Cycle Engineering (LCE) by IKP and PE investigates technical, environmental and economical aspects of products and technologies to analyze weak points and optimization potentials as well as to support product and technology development. Design for the Environment is an important application of LCE and will be discussed for automotive painting concepts.

Products and services cause different environmental problems during the different stages of their life cycle. The Life Cycle Assessment tool aims to identify possibilities to improve the environmental behavior of the systems under consideration. Herefor it is necessary to systematically collect and interpret material and energy flows for all relevant processes. The whole life cycle of a system has to be considered to prevent the neglecting or shift of possible important environmental aspects. These results have to be included in the overall decision making process. In the last years PE developed the Life Cycle Engineering approach, which consist of the dimensions LCA, Life Cycle Cost and TQM. In order to support designers, engineers and decision makers to make better informed decisions, it is necessary to perform LCA studies and economical assessments at a very early stage in product design.

LCA studies aim at an integrating system assessment as a comprehensive and holistic approach to prevent tradeoffs and guide users and decision makers for better informed decisions. The total life cycle approach aims at informing and supporting decision making and management support. LCA, like other management techniques as well, has inherent limitations, making choices, assumptions etc. inevitable. Before using the findings of life cycle studies, a consideration of those uncertainties, the effects of value choices and assumptions, as well as the inherent data inaccuracies must be examined in more detail. Traditional error and uncertainty analysis failed in practical use due to the specific system modeling, the data availability and the respective data collection procedures in life cycle studies. New approaches to identify and understand the system specific uncertainties are necessary for this purpose.