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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.

The automobile painting is a very energy and emission (solvents) intensive process step in the production of automobiles with regard to the small amount of paint applied to the car body. The awareness has risen that cleaner production technologies must substitute end-of-pipe control technologies. If these technologies strive for being a competitive option in corporate decision-making process, not only their environmental but also their technical and economical performance has to be on the same or better level compared to conventional technologies. The approach of Life-Cycle Engineering (LCE) by PE and IKP investigates technical, environmental and economical aspects of products and technologies. It is developed to a simulation tool to analyse weak points and optimisation potentials as well as to support product and technology development in the painting industry.

Total Life Cycle studies of systems like automotive parts, systems or entire vehicles are characterized by an enormous complexity and amounts of individual data points. A full assessment of this variety of information and data requires suitable and reliable data processing systems. The recently developed software system GaBi 3 allows the flexible modeling of life cycles with parameterized process modules. In this way GaBi 3 provides the basis for parameter variation and scenario analysis. Besides these essential elements for identifying improvement potentials, the system enlarges the environmental calculations by an economic and a technical dimension.

The approach of Life-Cycle Engineering (LCE) 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. The use and the possibilities of LCE will be demonstrated with the example of three-way catalyst systems.

The automobile painting is a very energy and emission (solvents) intensive process step in the production of automobiles with regard to the small amount of paint applied to the car body. The awareness has risen that cleaner production technologies must substitute end-of-pipe control technologies. If these technologies strive for being a competitive option in corporate decision-making process, not only their environmental but also their technical and economical performance has to be on the same or better level compared to conventional technologies. 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. LCE methodology was applied to the comparison of 1K, 2K, waterborne and powder clear coat systems for automobile painting in a multi-client project.

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.

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. To better inform the decision making process for product design or product optimization, reliable tools are necessary which mirror the complexity and provide enough concentrated information at the same time. These management tools also need either to be included into the existing technical and economical information at the same time, or, as a minimum, allow interfaces to those other disciplines. Often full LCA studies are too expensive and also to time intensive, as they could really serve as input into decision making. Therefore new approaches are inevitable to supply relevant information in time. Screening LCA's have been proposed from different sides.