Integração da avaliação do ciclo de vida ao processo de desenvolvimento de produto: uma proposta metodológica

Abstract

Product development is touted as a challenging issue in academia and industry. In addition, in the current scenario in which companies are inserted, discussions on sustainable development are increasingly present and essential. In this sense, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an important tool to help ensure adequate sustainability by assessing environmental impacts in product development. Therefore, this work aims to propose a methodology for the integration of LCA to the process of product development in the industry. For this, this study was carried out in three phases. In the first phase, the theoretical development of the themes was carried out. In the second phase, a systematic review of the literature was carried out, where it was possible to analyze the art study about the consideration of LCA in the product development process (PDP). And, in the third phase, the structuring of the methodology for integrating LCA into the PDP was developed. The proposed methodology was developed based on the LCA and in the stages of the development process presented by ISO / TR 14062. The objective of considering LCA in the PDP is to help identify environmental improvement potentials and to set environmental goals, besides, to enable the development of new strategies for the product. Thus, the suggested methodology for integrating the LCA into the PDP is carried out in three macro phases: Pre-integration, Integration and Post-integration. These macro phases consist of four phases: choice of the reference product, ACV of the reference product, integration of the ACV in the PDP and analysis of the integration of the ACV in the PDP. Each phase has specific activities to be carried out. In the integration phase of the LCA in the PDP, actions are presented for integration in each phase of the PDP and the analysis of the results of the integration is performed through an evaluation matrix that considers the impact categories and the phases of the product life cycle. The structure of the proposed methodology is presented in a generic and flexible way. This allows its application in different processes, and the characteristics and needs of the organizations can be adapted. In this way, the methodology developed will help companies in the process of developing more sustainable products by increasing the level of competitiveness of the organization and helping companies to identify new opportunities for the products developed.