A large life cycle inventory study like the one completed under the banner of the United States Automotive Materials Partnership (USAMP) can be a complex affair. Apart from the technical requirements of modeling a “generic” North American vehicle, it was necessary to bring a diverse group of stakeholders to the life cycle table and to have the stakeholders work together for a common purpose.
This paper identifies six stakeholders that participated in the LCI study of a generic North American automobile and describes how the work was organized. These stakeholders, particularly the auto, steel, plastics, and aluminum industries, each had different experiences with life cycle inventory analysis, held competing interests, and perhaps entered the project with different expectations.
Issues that had to be addressed include goal selection, provision of resources, division of the work among stakeholders, scheduling and related project planning, as well as the process for decision making. Disagreement on any of these issues might have undermined the project, but the stakeholders resolved to seek solutions. The result was a successfully completed LCI of a generic North American automobile that managed to bring competitors to the life cycle table.
This paper is one of six SAE publications discussing the results and execution of the USAMP Generic Vehicle LCI. The papers in this series are 982160, 982161, 982162, 982168, 982169, and 982170.