New industrial models for a sustainable and efficient production

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The EU-funded SustainValue project yielded several new tools and methods for promoting sustainable business development and performance management. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland led the development a model to pool the know-how of networking partners more efficiently throughout the life cycle of products and services. The project also developed a tool that can be used to estimate life cycle costs and compare investment alternatives. The novelty of the LCC tool lies in the fact that it enables businesses to communicate with clients on the life cycle costs of different solutions. Buyers often focus on the purchase price alone, which in many cases represents only a fraction of a product’s life cycle costs.The project also yielded a novel approach to business model development, a value mapping tool and a library of sustainable business models. University of Cambridge led the development of these methods.

Another outcome of the project was a model supporting sustainable product and service design. This model encompasses simulation techniques that can be used to assess the economic, ecological and social impacts of a product or service and to model maintenance alternatives. Responsibility for developing the model – which is designed to facilitate decision-making at different stages of product and service development – and the related simulation techniques was assigned to the Institute for Industrial Management at the RWTH Aachen University in Germany and the Politecnico di Milano in Italy.
For the project report, visit the website www.sustainvalue.eu.