Design for the Environment of Automotive Painting Concepts

Process and material innovations are not any longer motivated only by cost-reduction potentials. Corporate decision-making processes will be more and more broadened to evaluate new technologies with regard to their technical, economical and environmental performance. Therefore, innovations have to be at least on the same, if developing potentials are feasible, or better level compared to existing technologies using this holistic view. The approach of Life-Cycle Engineering (LCE) by IKP and PE investigates technical, environmental and economical aspects of products and technologies to analyze weak points and optimization potentials as well as to support product and technology development. Design for the Environment is an important application of LCE and will be discussed for automotive painting concepts.