EcoProIT is a project initiated at Chalmers University of Technology at the department of Product and Production Development. It was set up in the context of ecological footprint analyses, which are becoming more important in terms of marketing and legislation.[1] A published report by MIT in 2011 showed companies thought that environmental sustainable strategy is, or will be, vital to be competitive.[1]. The report included many sectors, e.g. covering medicals, automobiles and consumer products. EcoProIT will design a tool for industrial producers to mark their product with an environmental footprint using simulation tools. The tool will simulate the production and analyze the product's environmental footprint in a standardized way. It will also be possible yo use the tool for benchmarking between different sites. The aim for the tool puts high requierments on standardized methods and data management.
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The vision of the usage of EcoProIT is important. Company A, who is a big and important stakeholder, is the main user of the tool in Figure 1. They require their close supplier partner to use the same tool. Company A and supplier A and B then set up an internal connection of their tools. The connection makes the input information for Company A up to date for every use. Company A also sets up a connection to their close partners that buy or distribute Company A’s products. It will then be possible to give a good estimation of the impact total specific distribution chain that will be up to data. The information can be used to inform the end users about total costs for the production data. The up to up to date chain gives a possibility to show the consumers that the company makes progress in lowering the environmental impact. Every improvement is delivered directly to the customers, and the new marketing possibility show what the production department is doing for the environment.
All information that is produced by the tool should be able to be uploaded to the central EcoProIT Database that stores it in a standardized way to be able to be used by other companies. The tool is also connected to other LCA databases to be able to use as input for the raw materials used in the production. Figure 1 shows a schematic view on how the system could be connected.
As an approach to calculation of the impact, activity-based costing (ABC) will be used for calculations of environmental costs. Emblemssvåg and Bras[2] worked and analyzed the ABC as a method for environmental analyses. The method substitutes the cost for the production in money with an environmental emission, e.g. CO2 emissions. [2] The emissions is measured and calculated from the energy and resources used. Then the emissions are allocated to the different products produced using the resources in the model.
The problems with ABC is that it requires a lot of data for a qualitative and accurate allocation of the cost from the resources. This is why the method fits well into a DES model. During a run In a DES environment it is easy to grab lot of detailed results needed for accurate allocation. The problem is that DES require a lot of initial effort to build the model. The approach to analyze environmental impact in a DES model is only beneficial if there is requirements for detailed analyzes and “what-if” scenarios is needed.[3][4]
The main sponsor for the project is ProViking[5] accompanied by a few big industrial partners.
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