A decision supporting tool for environmentally conscious product design based on life cycle impact assessment, an ecological overall score and fuzzy logic

This paper introduces a method and a computer based system as an integrative approach, that can be implemented into the product development environment. The necessary product and process data for the assessment is determined by a parallel modelling of the product geometry (CAD-system) and the life cycle (life cycle modeller). This information is transmitted through the object-oriented database into the assessment system. Using fuzzy-arithmetic and fuzzy-logic, the data in the assessment system can be expressed by fuzzy sets. Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) plays an important role in the method for ecological evaluation. It is discussed that the results of LCIA are not arbitrary, although they partially are based on value choices.