Diaper Example Tutorial 3

(16/10/2015) (23/10/2015)
Created by : Omar Afifi
This example project demonstrates how a product material breakdown can be modeled for the
nonwovens industry to identify ways to improve its environmental performance.

Scenario: You have been hired by G&G to help redesign a baby dry diaper to reduce its
environmental impact. Their goals for the redesigned diaper are to:
Reduce the CO2 footprint from the existing model
Its your job to redesign the existing toaster to meet the clients goals.

Information about the current baby diaper: The following info was supplied to you by G&G,
information extracted from this might be useful for your LCA
1) Size of the diaper: size (1), weight of 8-14lbs
2) Baby uses 4 diapers/day for one year (total of 1460 diapers/year/baby)
3) After use, the diaper is thrown away and sent to sanitary landfill in the US. (End-of-Life
Scenario)
4) The diaper is produced in Luogang, China and shipped 7,000 miles to China to Charleston,
SC by Oceanic freighter /frdr/ and then trucked 500 miles to Ohio via 28-ton-truck.
(Transportation Scenario)
Additional Information about the current diaper:
1) Project Functional Unit: 1 year of use
2) Reference Concept Total Amount of Service Delivered: 1/1460 (Why?)
Plan of Action:
1) Create a new project to redesign the current diaper
2) Create the reference model based on the current diaper and the information provided
3) Create one or several diaper concepts to attempt to meet the requirements

Instructions:
Step 1: Start a new project with the information given, provide the goals and assessment scope.
Definition Tab:
1)
2)
3)
4)

Project Name: DiaperS

Client: G&G
Product Category: Misc. Fabricated Textile Products
Project Description: You have been hired by G&G to help redesign a baby dry diaper
to reduce its environmental impact. Their goals for the redesigned diaper are to:
Reduce the CO2 footprint from the existing model .Its your job to redesign the
existing toaster to meet the clients goals.
5) NEXT
Assessment Goals Tab:
1) Company goals and environmental Policies: Reduce the CO2 footprint from the
existing model
be as "green" as possible.
2) Project assessment goals: 1.Further learn how to conduct a very successful LCA,
2.Need to reduce the C02 footprint form the current diaper by at-least 20%
3) NEXT
Assessments Scope Tab:
1) Functional Unit: 1 year of use
2) Product System: Boundaries (Inclusion): The product at hand includes the following
a) The diaper and all the manufacturing processes associated with it, its use,
transportation and end-of-life.
b) All life cycles of the product are included (manufacturing, use, transportation and
end-of-life)
3) Product system image: Upload attached
4) Product system exclusions: The exclusions of the following project are:
a) Human labor required to manufacture the diaper
b) Factory buildings and equipment used (fans/pumps., etc.)
c) Roads used
5) NEXT -> Add First Concept

Step 2: Create the reference concept: define the reference and build the SBOM
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)

Concept Name : Diaper_REF

Image or rendering : Upload Image provided
Concept description : Enter this is the first (Ref) concept
Total amount of service delivered (1/1460 ~ 0.0007)
Describe the rationale behind the calculations : based on companies estimation on the
amount of diapers used/year
6) SAVE
System Bill of Material (BOM) - Manufacturing
1) Import the following BOM to the SM software, the name of the file is
Diaper_BOM_1.tsv found in the email provided. -> upload file.
2) Open the file named List1.xlsx found in the email , and manually add every item to
the SBOM via (+add part) and (+add sub assembly) buttons
System Bill of Material (BOM) Use - N/A There is no use information given in the
scenario
System Bill of Material (BOM) End of Life
1) Specify the end-of-life method for each part to be Sanitary landfill as per the
scenario given
System Bill of Material (BOM) Transportation
1) China to Charleston, SC via Oceanic freighter /frdr/ for 7000 mile (Trans Mode 1)
2) Charleston, SC to Ohio via 28t Truck (Trans Mode 2)

Step 3: Create new concept(s) for comparison to the reference

First you need to copy the reference concept, rename it, then change any of the above and click
on Results to compare them according to the CO2 footprint to select the best option.

*
A2) because the Total number of diapers used for one baby per year of use is 1460, this LCA is
done for (1) diaper not the baby use per year

Reference: SuistainableMinds Projects. (http://www.sustainableminds.com/)