Open Access

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is one of the fundamental methods to facilitate effective decisions in sustainability transformation. However, the current implementation of LCA is inefficient due to detached software applications and manual data imports. Utilizing data from existing information systems offers the potential for a significant increase in efficiency. Existing approaches focus on prototypical implementations with a high level of detail but low transferability, or approaches only consider integration at the system level, whereby practical applicability is reduced. Therefore, this paper presents an information-based framework for integrating LCA software into the existing IT landscape of manufacturing companies with focusing on generic functions and a detailed information flow. The generic approach enables transferability, while the detailed information flows allow practical applicability.

The research outlines a concept to conduct the double materiality assessment through the synergistic use of Generative AI and the AHP method. In the first step, we employ interactive, moderated workshops as our chosen methodology to create a tailored set of sustainability target criteria. This process is enriched by the inclusion of Generative AI. The outcome is a comprehensive set of company-specific sustainability target criteria.

Im Vortrag wurde ein Impuls zur Kreislaufwirtschaft und zur möglichen Unterstützung durch Digitalisierung gegeben.

Komplexe Anforderungen an das operative Supply-Chain-Management führen zu komplexen Entscheidungssituationen innerhalb des betrieblichen Alltags. Ein konzeptioniertes, modulares Simulationsmodell für das operative Supply-Chain-Management kann die Entscheidungsfindung auf Grundlage von Analysen und Daten unterstützen. Die Modularisierung ermöglicht eine flexible, effiziente und unternehmensspezifische Anwendung des Simulationsmodells. Die Modularität ist durch die individuelle Kombination geeigneter Module und Funktionen sowie der Abbildung dazugehöriger Informationsflüsse realisiert. Informationsflüsse werden dabei durch definierte Informationsobjekte, wie z. B. einen Fertigungsauftrag oder eine Maschine, spezifiziert. Die Module und Funktionen bilden die unterschiedlichen Prozessschritte ab.

Transitioning to a circular economy fundamentally changes the traditional, linear economic model. Establishing circular strategies requires adapting and expanding the roles within the value system to realize the decoupling of economic growth and resource consumption. In particular, a combination of several value-retention strategies implemented in parallel can increase the ecological and economic potential of circular economy. However, there is a lack of description of this type of value system in relation to the new required activities, and the resulting material and information flows within the value system. For this reason, literature research and exploratory analyses through expert workshops were used to identify variants for implementing the value system. The results include the definition of five possible variants of a value system for the parallel implementation of value-retention circular strategies in the white goods industry. The five possible variants are necessary to enable sustainable collaboration strategies between different stakeholders from which all of the stakeholders can benefit. The new activities for enabling the various value-retention strategies, e.g., product evaluation or disassembly, are distributed differently across the stakeholders of the value systems per variant. This leads to distinct material and information flows per variant.