Open Access

It is widely recognized that sustainability is a new challenge for many manufacturing companies. In this paper, we tackle this issue by presenting an approach that deals with material and substance compliance within Product Lifecycle Management in a complex value chain. Our analysis explains why, how and when sustainable manufacturing arises, and it identifies, quantifies and evaluates the environmental impact of a new product. We propose (I) a Life Cycle Assessment tool (LCA) and (II) a model to validate this approach and evaluate the risk of noncompliance in supply chain. Our LCA approach provides comprehensive information on environmental impacts of a product. Product and materials cycles are parallel and intersecting, making it challenging to integrate Material Selection Process across Product Lifecycle Management, Integration of LCA with PLM. We provide only a foundation. Further research in systems engineering is necessary. LCA is sensitive to data quality. Outsourcing production and having problems in supplier cooperation can result in material mismatch (such as property, composition mismatching) in the production process due to that may cause misleading of LCA results. This paper also describes research challenges using riskbased due diligence.

Despite the importance of Social Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (S-LCSA), little research has addressed its integration into Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems. This paper presents a structured review of relevant research and practice. Also, to address practical aspects in more detail, it focuses on challenges and potential for adoption of such an integrated system at an electronics company. We began by reviewing literature on implementations of Social-LCSA and identifying research needs. Then we investigated the status of Social-LCSA within the electronics industry, both by reviewing literature and interviewing decision makers, to identify challenges and the potential for adopting S-LCSA at an electronics company. We found low maturity of Social-LCSA, particularly difficulty in quantifying social sustainability. Adoption of Social-LCSA was less common among electronics industry suppliers, especially mining & smelting plants. Our results could provide a basis for conducting case studies that could further clarify issues involved in integrations of Social-LCSA into PLM systems.

Digitalization is one of the most frequently discussed topics in industry. New technologies, platform concepts and integrated data models do enable disruptive business models and drive changes in organization, processes, and tools. The goal is to make a company more efficient, productive and ultimately profitable. However, many companies are facing the challenge of how to approach digital transformation in a structured way and to realize these potential benefits. What they realize is that Product Lifecycle Management plays a key role in digitalization intends, as object, structure and process management along the life cycle is a foundation for many digitalization use cases. The introduced maturity model for assessing a firm’s capabilities along the product lifecycle has been used almost two hundred times. It allows a company to compare its performance with an industry specific benchmark to reveal individual strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, an empirical study produced multidimensional correlation coefficients, which identify dependencies between business model characteristics and the maturity level of capabilities.

In the last decade, both sustainability and business models for sustainability have increased in importance. Sustainability issues have become the focus of discussion. These issues are interlinked and often negatively impact each other. They are complex and include socio-ecological dilemmas, exist in almost every aspect of our society (economic, environmental, social), and are hard to formulate. They may have multiple, incompatible solutions, competing objectives, and open timeframes. Previous research has not developed satisfactory ways to comprehend and solve problems of this nature. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) the widely used method to assess sustainable development has reached its limitation to achieve sustainable social goals. System Dynamics (SD) is a valuable methodology that enhances understanding of the structure and internal dynamic behaviours of large, complex, and dynamic systems, leading to improved decision-making. It offers a philosophy and set of tools for modelling, analysing, and simulating dynamic systems. This research applied system dynamics methods in conjunction with simulation software to assess the potential impact of a solution on environmental, social, and economic aspects of a complex system, aims to gain insights into the system's behaviour and identify the potential consequences of interventions or policy changes across multiple dimensions. This paper responds to the urgent need for a new business model by presenting a concept for an adapted dynamic business modelling for sustainability (aDBMfS) using system dynamics. Case studies in the smartphone industry are applied.

In the last decade, both sustainability (Green & Blue Economies) and business models for sustainability (BMfS) have increased in importance. Social life cycle sustainability assessment has not fully achieved goal, mainly because sustainability‐oriented business is very complex and dynamic. System Dynamics (SD) is a powerful methodology and computer simulation modeling technique for framing, understanding and discussing complex issues and problems. This paper responds to the urgent need for a new business model by presenting a concept for dynamic business modeling for sustainability using system dynamics. The paper illustrates the key operating principles through an application from the smartphone industry with help from STELLA® software for simulation. Simulations suggest that dynamic business modeling for sustainability may contribute to sustainable business model research and practice by introducing a systemic design tool that frames environmental, social, and economic drivers of value generation into a dynamic business model causal feedback structure, therefore overcoming shortcomings of current business models when applied to complex systems.