Publication:
Development of a life cycle assessment benefit assessment for the benefit evaluation of products and processes

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Authors
Echevarría Sotomayor, Luis A.
Embargoed Until
Advisor
Baigés Valentín, Iván J.
College
College of Engineering
Department
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Degree Level
M.S.
Publisher
Date
2009
Abstract
As the world advances in age, new technologies emerge to provide the people new products and services to satisfy their needs. But at what cost? These new products and services provide benefits but at the same time generate unintended outcomes or consequences such as resource depletion and waste generation. There are different methodologies that provide the capability of evaluating these consequences or impacts. On the other hand there is a need to determine or evaluate how a product or service meets the overall customer needs. Presently, there is a need for a benefit assessment that can evaluate the benefits of products/services based on how well the customer needs are satisfied. This research is focused on the creation of a benefit assessment methodology to evaluate products/services. It was then applied to a product and a service to see the results and evaluate them if it was a valid assessment tool. This methodology, in combination with existing ones such as Life Cycle Assessment, could be a great tool to evaluate products/services completely in a whole new way.

Mientras el mundo avanza en edad, nuevas tecnologías son desarrolladas para crear nuevos servicios y productos. Estos productos y servicios, al ser nuevos, crean un impacto tanto en el humano como en el medio ambiente. Es necesario el uso de herramientas como la Evaluación del Ciclo de Vida para evaluar estos productos/servicios y ver su impacto. Pero para hacer una evaluación completa, hay que hacerla en todos sus aspectos. Desarrollando una metodología de evaluación de beneficios, se puede añadir una nueva dimensión a esta evaluación. Esta se desarrolló y luego se aplicó a un producto y a un servicio. Se analizaron los resultados obtenidos y se llegó a conclusiones. Esta puede ser una adición útil para poder hacer evaluaciones de productos y servicios más completos.
Keywords
life cycle assessment
Cite
Echevarría Sotomayor, L. A. (2009). Development of a life cycle assessment benefit assessment for the benefit evaluation of products and processes [Thesis]. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11801/545