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A Preparatory Approach to Environmental Assessment for Sustainable Mass Customization

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Customization 4.0

Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics ((SPBE))

Abstract

Mass customization (MC) is a growing trend in industry that fulfils the demand of customers for personalized products and services. Parallel to customization, more regulations and demand for sustainable products and environmental business practices have increased importance on the agenda of businesses today. However, the knowledge about the implementation of sustainable mass customization (SMC) models is still mainly theoretical. The SMC Excel project presents an approach for the development of an SMC environmental assessment based on life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology for a TV. The environmental assessment method denominated SMC Excel Sustainability Approach (SESA) presented in this study aims to provide reliable information of the environmental impacts of a product (TV) while serving as an efficient and applicable assessment methodology for MC. General requirements for the SESA are described and applied to a case study of a TV. Furthermore, the result of a full-scale LCA of a standard TV model is compared with those impacts obtained by SESA, which indicated that the variance between both results is nominal and, thus, SESA can represent a valid approach for environmental assessment methodologies. Additionally, with the test case scenario of a take-back service where both methods are compared, the impact disparity is similarly low. Nevertheless, further research and testing are required in order to improve accuracy and methodological procedures of the SESA method.

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Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) within the second call of ERA-NET ECO-INNOVERA (SMC Excel project funded by BAFU (Switzerland), BMBF (Germany) and TUBITAK (Turkey). For detailed information, visit www.smc-excel.eu.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. e-hoch-3 GbR, Darmstadt, Germany

    Alena Hänsch, Maike Hora & Shirin Gomez

  2. University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland – SUPSI, Department of Innovative Technologies, Manno, Switzerland

    Alessandro Fontana & Luca Canetta

  3. RWTH Aachen University, Technology and Innovation Management Group, Aachen, Germany

    Stephan Hankammer

Authors
  1. Alena Hänsch
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  2. Maike Hora
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  3. Alessandro Fontana
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  4. Stephan Hankammer
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  5. Luca Canetta
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  6. Shirin Gomez
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Alena Hänsch or Alessandro Fontana .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Stephan Hankammer

  2. Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Kjeld Nielsen

  3. RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Frank T. Piller

  4. RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Günther Schuh

  5. RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Ning Wang

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Hänsch, A., Hora, M., Fontana, A., Hankammer, S., Canetta, L., Gomez, S. (2018). A Preparatory Approach to Environmental Assessment for Sustainable Mass Customization. In: Hankammer, S., Nielsen, K., Piller, F., Schuh, G., Wang, N. (eds) Customization 4.0. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77556-2_20

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