Life cycle engineering, product lifecycle management and sustainability

The reduction of product lifecycle-related environmental impacts is prerequisite to sustainability. Life Cycle Engineering (LCE) can be defined as engineering activities focused on the design and production of products that have minimal environmental impact during their entire life cycle. Product lifecycle management (PLM) can be defined as a business approach for managing a company's product throughout its life cycle. Despite the promised opportunities for competitive advantage resulting from sustainability, the implementation of this concept has not reached companies worldwide, mainly due to the gap between product-oriented (PLM) and environment-oriented (LCE) research. The goal of this paper is to explore the complementarities between LCE and PLM by presenting them as complementary knowledge areas influencing the main business processes that deal with product lifecycle. By doing this the aforementioned gap can be bridged and sustainability can be reached alongside with competitiveness.