How managing more efficiently substances in the design process of industrial products? An example from the aeronautics sector

TL;DR

This paper introduces a practical method for aeronautical designers to manage chemical substances early in the product design process, aiming to reduce environmental and regulatory risks.

Contribution

It presents a new, easy-to-implement chemical risk management method tailored for aeronautical design practices, enhancing substances traceability and decision-making.

Findings

Method is based on four main steps and simple data inputs.

Successfully tested on a real case study.

Helps designers avoid chemically critical materials.

Abstract

Lowering environmental impacts of products, i.e. ecodesign, is considered today as a new and promising approach environment protection. This article focuses on ecodesign in the aeronautical sector through the analysis of the practices of a company that designs and produces engine equipments. Noise, gas emissions, fuel consumptions are the main environmental aspects which are targeted by aeronautics. From now on, chemical risk linked to the use of materials and production processes has to be traced, not only because of regulation pressure (e.g. REACh) but also because of customers requirements. So far, the aeronautical sector hasn't been focusing much on managing chemical risks at the design stage. However, new substances regulations notably require that chemical risk management should be by industries used as early as possible in their product development process. The aeronautics sector has therefore to elaborate new chemical risk management. The aim of this paper is to present a new method hat should be adapted to aeronautical designers' practices and based on simple entry data, but efficient enough to ensure a good substances traceability all along the product design process. The method second objective is also to guide the designer's materials and process choices by avoiding the most chemically critical ones. The proposed method has been elaborated by an industrial dedicated team and is based on four main steps. The structure, the related tools and the parameters of the method have been chosen and developed in order to be easily understood by non environmental experts, and directly operational. The method is tested on a case study.