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C. Möltner:
"Life Cycle Assessment als Werkzeug einer ökologisch orientierten Produktentwicklung";
Supervisor: W. Tober, F. Schweitzer; FH Oberösterreich, Campus Wels, 2008; final examination: 2008-12-12.

The majority of -the environmental impacts, which a product might have, are already predefined in the early stages of product development. In order to achieve a reduction of ecological impacts of products, adequate instruments are required. In this diploma thesis the potential of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a tool of an ecological oriented product development is investigated. LCA is an evaluation tool for analysing all environmental impacts, which are caused along the lifecycle of a product. Thereby, the investigation includes all phases from the extraction of raw materials as weIl as all various stages of produc t manufacturing and its utilisation up to the point of the final disposal of the product. The vital research objectives of this work are, to prove the applicability of LCAs for integration into product development, to examine possibilities for organisational design of such integration and to show the possible benefits for companies. Furthermore, the room for improvement is detected, which can advance the integration into produc t development.
The theoretical part of this diploma thesis points out the need for ecological oriented produc t lifecycle analysis and moreover, a fundamental understanding for the tool of LCA is accomplished. In order to investigate the integration of the tool into product development in the next step, an explorative research design is applied. Based on analysis of LCA-Iiterature, hypotheses are formulated, which are elaborated by a qualitative survey and afterwards further developed.
The aptitude of LCAs for application within produc t development is proved. The specific role, which can be captured by LCA within produc t development, is illustrated by a hypothetical model. A quantitative corroboration of this model as weIl as anumber of developed hypotheses can be the objective of future work.