Towards an integration of environmental criteria in the OEM/subcontractors relationship
Faced with the rise of the sustainable development challenge, industry has integrated this dimension in the product design through the concept of eco-design. Many eco-design tools and methods have been developed during the last decade, leading to a fragmentation of eco-design approaches in the industry. One of the main identified weaknesses is the methodological discontinuity between different members of industrial value chain. OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers), which externalized a non-negligible part of their production, settle mainly quantitative and costly approaches. Because of a lack of expertise and financial resources, subcontractors focus on qualitative and simplified approaches. This research work aims at the development of a method to foster interaction between the eco-design approaches of the different levels of the industrial value chain.