How do life-cycle assessments fit into the Industry 4.0 paradigm?
You may well have heard of life-cycle assessments (LCA), a broadly recognised approach to analysing the environmental, economic and social impacts of goods and services. LCA models gather all the material and energy needs (as well as all the material and emission outputs of the processes) required to manufacture a specific good, from extraction to disposal.
Now, with the growth of concepts such as cognitive manufacturing, where data is analysed in real time with smart algorithms to help to gain insights beyond human capabilities, LCA is taking a similar step forward into its newest form – the dynamic LCA.
One of our European research projects, HyperCOG European Project, has recently had a paper published on research done in this area, spearheaded by project partners 2.-0 LCA consultants.
The HyperCOG project aimed to showed how cyber-physical systems and data analytics can be used to drive transformation within the European process industry. It developed a cyber-physical system architecture consisting of a hyperconnected network of nodes that combined cognitive computing techniques, industrial IoT technologies, and advanced data analytics.
This system was then put to the test in a steelmaking factory. Steelmaking produces a considerable share of global greenhouse gas emissions and has ever growing demand, but decarbonisation in this sector has stagnated in recent years, making it the perfect testbed for the HyperCOG solution.
The innovation from 2.-0 LCA consultants was to take their LCA model and insert it directly into one of the nodes of the cyber-physical system, allowing its optimisation algorithms to feed on real-time data and provide options to improve operations by minimising emissions and cost.
While the results indicated modest savings in costs and emissions, it has provided a promising blueprint for integrating LCA into Industry 4.0 applications. This could lead to a future where factory operators are able to see the potential economic, environmental and social impacts of their decisions in real-time, and make adjustments accordingly.
Check out the HyperCOG website here, which outlines the results of the project
And watch the documentary we made on the HyperCOG project below from 18.28 to hear Miguel Astudillo of 2.-0 LCA consultants explain more about their role in the project: