PACCAR

Develop a Model for Completing Vehicle System Life Cycle Assessments

This student team worked to develop a tool that can be used to determine the environmental impact of a vehicle system in the five stages of life cycle assessment: raw materials, manufacturing, distribution, in-use, recycling/end-of-life. At the time of this project, PACCAR was working on improving the sustainability of its products and needs a tool to identify and measure the environmental impact of vehicle systems to improvements. The transportation industry was under increasing pressure from regulations, investors, and customers to reduce its environmental impact, this student team worked to aid in identifying opportunities to reduce the environmental impact of the transportation industry and to establish performance criteria for consideration in future part design and procurement. An anticipated outcome this student team worked to accomplish is a functional conceptual model for LCA of a vehicle system that can be used for any vehicle system and allow for direct comparison between systems.