Laboratory for Manufacturing and Sustainability

The environmental impact of most consumer products is dominated by their use phase. However, theseimpacts tend to be driven by the manufacture of the product’s components since components fabricatedwith higher precision typically allow the product to operate at higher efficiencies. This paper investigatesthe relationship between precision and life cycle environmental impacts by extending the traditional LCAmethodology to evaluate the impact of manufacturing process precision on the functional performance ofa product during its use phase. The implications of this relationship to manufacturing decision-makingare also discussed as sustainability concerns may support the use of higher precision processes.deee