Life Cycle Assessment of PLM System Scenarios: Sensitivity Insights from an Academic Use Case

The 2020s represent both the digital decade and the pivotal period in the fulfillment of long-standing commitments made by public, private, and institutional actors in favor of sustainable development. In the manufacturing context, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems are used during the design phase to reduce product environmental footprint. However, only a few studies have thoroughly identified the environmental impacts associated with these technological solutions. This study proposes a sensitivity analysis of five environmental impact categories associated with two PLM system architectures and three mitigation scenarios. To this end, we use an engineering school as a representative PLM system case study, relying on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology and leveraging specialized tools that enable the execution and comparative analysis of multiple LCA scenarios. Our results consistently identify the manufacturing and usage phases of PLM system users’ equipment as the main contributors of the PLM system to climate change, acidification, and the depletion of abiotic mineral and metal resources. End-of-life contributes significantly to particulate matter impact, and usage phase, in a nuclear mix country, to ionizing radiation. The policy of purchasing and reselling reconditioned users’ equipment is clearly identified as a key lever for reducing the magnitude of these five environmental impacts.