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PublicationIntegrated Consideration of Data Flows and Life Cycle Assessment in Vehicle Dismantling processes( 2024)The pursuit of environmental sustainability and resource conservation has underscored the growing significance of the circular economy paradigm across industries. This transformation is particularly pertinent within the automotive industry, necessitating a profound restructuring of the value chain, with a specific focus on end-of-life considerations. Significant potential for circular economy arises from the thorough examination of end-of-life vehicles and processes, involving strategies such as component reuse, material recycling and primary resource reduction. Providing process-, product-, component-, and material-specific information at the end-of-life of automotive vehicles can improve decision-making regarding circular strategies. It also demands for new digital solutions. This paper addresses an integrated approach of data flow analysis and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to enable a comprehensive monitoring of the environmental impact of these processes. First, the use case of end-of-life dismantling processes is presented - including pyrotechnics neutralization, vehicle dehydration, disassembly of reuse components as well as vehicle compaction. Secondly, the data demand respective information and material flows is depicted. As a main result, the LCA data flow model specifically tailored to the end-of-life vehicle dismantling processes is described. This model serves as a fundamental basis for analyzing the environmental impact of end-of-life processes combined with the underlying data flow.
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PublicationSustainable product lifecycle management with Digital Twins: A systematic literature review( 2023-07)A Digital Twin (DT) is a virtual replica of a product or product-service system, which can be used to provide transparency of a product's sustainability and to positively influence the ecological impact throughout its lifecycle by means of intelligent data analytics. This paper identifies current sustainability-focused application scenarios of DTs in the manufacturing industry and outlines the results of a systematic literature review (SLR). The identification of the state-of-the-art and the assessment of current DT concepts with regard to the addressed product lifecycle phases, technological maturity and sustainability scope point towards key directions to guide future research.
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PublicationTaxonomy for Biological Transformation Principles in the Manufacturing Industry( 2023)Industry and research are seeking answers to current demands in industrial value creation, like resilience of production, sufficient product quality and sustainability of products and processes. A novel line of thought, seeking the accomplishment of those is the Biological Transformation (BT). BT describes the interweaving of biological modes of action, materials and organisms with engineering and information sciences. The conflation of disciplines from natural, technical and social sciences yields in a heterogeneous field of activities with ambiguous technical terms. An ascertainment of principles of BT is required to classify yet undifferentiated patterns in nature-based production, facilitating their systematic implementation in aiming for sustained solutions on current challenges. With increasing research in biomimetic, attempts arise to capture nature‑based activities in manufacturing through schematic classifications. Yet, basic semantics representing the effective principles of BT in the manufacturing industry is lacking. The goal of this publication is to introduce a taxonomy of Biological Transformation in manufacturing based on its core principles Bio Inspiration, Bio Integration and Bio Interaction. Within the research project BioFusion 4.0, the taxonomy was developed and applied to classify technology innovations. The paper presents the taxonomy, its development and application in use cases.
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PublicationEnd-of-life decision support to enable circular economy in the automotive industry based on digital twin data( 2023)With the EU Green Deal and the UN Sustainable Developments Goals, the vision of a greenhouse gas-neutral and resource-efficient economy is already firmly anchored in world politics. In this context, the automotive industry faces many challenges including the increasing scarcity of natural resources, a rising demand in terms of sustainable vehicle design, production and materials sourcing. Due to all this, end-of-life decisions regarding dismantling have become increasingly important. A high proportion of secondary materials will be required in the vehicles of the future. To response to these challenges, companies have turned their focus towards the circular economy as a central approach to close material loops. In the German research project “Catena-X” a new data ecosystem with digital twins is one enabler that is being developed. The digital twins represent a promising approach to the circular economy by ensuring transparent, product-specific and end-to-end data exchange throughout the entire product lifecycle, from the material sourcing to the eventual dismantling and recycling. As one particular and unique solution, a decision framework that facilitates the best circular strategy at the end of a vehicle's life is developed and presented in this paper. The underlying data-driven decision support framework is based on circular economy KPIs. This includes material, components and specific vehicle KPIs to best identify the most suitable circular strategy. The framework was methodologically developed by an interdisciplinary team of partners, who are stakeholders throughout the value chain and participants in the Catena-X project. An integrated approach of user-centered design, an adapted version of the V-model and the Scaled Agile Framework were used for the methodology in the development of the solution. The paper presents the concept of a digital twin for a decision support system, that includes a central decision logic that also includes the relevant KPIs and a survey for evaluating the decision logic utilised with a chosen dismantling company.
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PublicationDimensions of Industrial Openness - Understanding Openness and its Implications for Sustainable Transformation( 2023)
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PublicationAn explorative multiple case study of smart-circular PSS - status quo in industry( 2023)The business as usual is not yet decoupled from current environmentally damaging value creation. This raises the continuous need for new solutions to allow for the operationalization of R-strategies. One specific approach is the establishment of smart-circular Product-Service-Systems considering all three sustainability strategies – efficiency, consistency and sufficiency – in the entire product lifecycle. Within this multiple case study, 30 existing use cases from different industries, which are already interconnected PSS, were analysed in detail using the following criteria: Level of sustainability reporting, B2B or B2C, product focus, sustainable PSS types, classification of smart PSS elements and the realization of R-strategies subdivided into smart and conventional operationalization. Descriptions in the websites, videos and sustainability reports of the respective PSS providers served as the data source for this multiple case study. In addition, to the authors further data collection, using the replication logic of Yin, seven case studies from the scientific literature dealing with the topic of implementation of PSS were an inspiration and some of the use cases have been used for this paper. To validate the above criteria, 30 PSS providers were contacted, 6 of whom responded and confirmed the assessment. The main results were: Findings of the analysed criteria and future research directions.
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PublicationUser centered development of a digital twin concept with focus on sustainability in the clothing industry( 2020)The optimization of a product's socio-economic and environmental impact is gaining more relevance for customers and regulating institutions. Still, there is a gap between sustainable attitude and behavior. In this context, new technologies are explored to stimulate sustainable consumers' behavior. This paper aims at analyzing the concept of a Digital Twin and its sustainability impact. The authors present a user centered development of a Digital Clothing Twin with the aim to foster sustainability in the Mid-of-life and End-of-Life-phase. The sustainability impact of the Digital Twin concept as a potential solution as well as part of the problem is discussed.
