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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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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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PublicationConsidering LCA in System Architectures of Smart-Circular PSS( 2023)The realization of smart-circular Product-Service Systems has theoretically promising advantages compared to traditional products. Nevertheless, the sustainability improvement, especially for the ecological dimension is not yet satisfactorily proved. In this paper, the authors examined the current state of research within a systematic literature review with a specific focus on the overlap of the topics: Life Cycle Assessment, Model-Based Systems Engineering, Product-Service Systems, and Circular Economy. The aim is to analyze the potential of a proactive quantification of the ecological impact in an early stage during the development of smart-circular PSS - the system architecture definition. As a result of the systematic review, 27 relevant papers were identified and analyzed and the findings are presented in a structured way. The main finding is that the current state of the art in this research field still is in the conceptualization stage. In addition, a proactive approach is rare and circularity is not considered to its fullest. Quantified use cases do not draw the system boundaries Cradle-to-Cradle and not every of the 9R-strategies is considered. Furthermore, the potentials and challenges of the revealed research gap are summarized.
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PublicationDimensions of Industrial Openness - Understanding Openness and its Implications for Sustainable Transformation( 2023)
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PublicationDeutsche Normungsroadmap Circular Economy(DIN, 2023-01)Die deutsche Normungsroadmap Circular Economy unterstützt den Weg von einer linearen in eine zirkuläre Wirtschaft, denn bei dem Vorhaben Stoffkreisläufe zu schließen und damit wertvolle Ressourcen zu sparen, spielen Normen und Standards eine wichtige Rolle. Die Normungsroadmap betrachtet Hemmnisse und Herausforderungen für die Transformation aus Normungsperspektive und benennt die Normungsbedarfe für sieben entscheidende Sektoren der deutschen Wirtschaft.
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PublicationMethodik zur modellbasierten Systemarchitekturdefinition von Smart-circular Product-Service Systems(Fraunhofer Verlag, 2022)Induziert durch Digitalisierung und Servitisierung bieten Unternehmen in zunehmendem Maße Systeme aus vernetzten mechatronischen Produkten, Software und Dienstleistungen an: sogenannte Smart-circular Product Service Systems (Smart-circular PSS). Ungeklärt ist bislang, wie Teams bei der Entwicklung von Smart-circular PSS sachgerecht methodisch unterstützt werden können. Diese Arbeit begegnet diesen Beobachtungen mit der Forschungshypothese, dass sich Systemarchitekturen von Smart-circular PSS durch geeignete Methoden des Modellbasierten Systems Engineerings (MBSE) so entwerfen lassen, dass die Systeme effektiv und effizient zu einer CE beitragen. Aufbauend auf gewonnenen Erkenntnissen wurde die Methodik zur Definition von Smart-circular PSS-Systemarchitekturen (MESSIAH) entwickelt, die Entwicklungsteams bei der Konzeptionierung von Smart-circular PSS unterstützt. Die Methode beinhaltet eine Modellierungsgenerik, eine gerichtete Methode sowie einen Baukasten zum schnellen Prototypisieren von Services. MESSIAH wurde anhand von fünf Studien evaluiert und erprobt.
