THE INFLUENCE OF MULTIPLE LIFE CYCLES ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF A PRODUCT

One of the design problems of business-to-consumer products results from their increasingly short lifetimes. The technological changes, associated with the evolutions of use, lead the companies to renew their product lining more and more early. Components that could be used in new products are often wasted. Remanufacturing offers a promising solution to the issue of waste. But remanufacturing is economically and environmentally beneficial only if the product and its life cycle are designed to account for its reuse. This article proposes green design of reusable modules with environmental and economic evaluations for multiples lifecycles (MLCs). We introduce parameters such as number and duration of cycles and the number of reusable modules. We tested this approach by comparing three espresso machines. The test showed that product decomposition in modules with multiple life cycles for reusable modules is environmentally and economically attractive.