Product life cycle management for sustainability through information technology

Better control of product life cycles gives the possibility of more sustainable use of resources. This control can come from using information technology to improve our knowledge of the transport, use, maintenance and disposal of the product, enabling better decisions on resource use and re-use. The EC-funded ELIMA project is piloting two products with additional IT functions - data capture and RF identification units - that are designed to improve knowledge of product use. But the whole operation must make business sense as well as environmental sense. In any particular case of a product that needs tracking or managing, the new business model must show that the additional cost of managing the life cycle is paid for either by savings in producer costs or by value-added services offered to the user such as additional functions, advice on product use or upgrades. We present a framework for developing business models of life cycle management that helps identify partners, costs, benefits, links and flows of information. Examples show that some innovative service concepts are not likely to be viable and that others depend on close relationships between actors in the life cycle.