Life Cycle Assessment for Adaptive Remanufacturing: incorporating ecological considerations into the planning of maintenance activities – a case study in the German heavy machinery industry

Driven by the awareness of the global depletion of irrecoverable materials, cradle-to-cradle approaches like remanufacturing are enablers for increasing sustainability and resource efficiency in the manufacturing sector. In this context, the research project Adaptive Remanufacturing for Life Cycle Optimization of Capital Goods (ReLIFE) offers a holistic approach for a proactive, intelligent maintenance strategy with a focus on the life cycle extension of capital goods. As quantitative input to a decision-making model, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been used to present comparative results between a traditional maintenance strategy and an Adaptive Remanufacturing (AdR) strategy. In contrast to conventional LCA, the contribution of this paper is on the impacts incurred by specific maintenance measures. Therefore, the scope of assessment encompasses a life cycle on measure level to model and assess long-term ecological effects. For a decision-making model created in the project, the LCA results enable plant operators to select maintenance strategies that factor in long-term ecological implications.