Quantifying Life Cycle Inventories for Machining Processes at Detailed Design

Abstract This paper quantifies machining process inventories based on commonly used techniques in various stages of the detailed design process. We investigate variabilities in process inventories between these techniques and their relation to manufacturing process parameters, which are required for generating machine-level instructions. We also benchmark these process inventory modeling techniques against experimental measurements. We then showcase potential issues of using available process models without properly accounting for product and process differences. Our results caution practitioners against basing their environmental analyses on data collected prior to detailed process planning. We conclude that accurate quantification of machining process inventories requires combining accurate simulation-based models with data-driven estimates for model parameters.