ProdTect - optimizing end-of-life product performance in the design stage

The End of Life Performance of a product is mostly set at the design stage. Therefore, product developers must be supported by appropriate software tools in meeting the requirements of the WEEE, ELV and the RoHS directive. ProdTect is a tool that enables producers to keep comprehensive control on a high bandwidth of parameters within the End-of-Life. ProdTect incorporates real recycling market data, market feedback and DFR experience into a powerful tool for comprehensively evaluating End-of-Life performance of products. It helps product developers to optimize material selection and product structure in order to match constraints of Design for Recyclability in the most efficient way. The tool allows an End-of-Life Performance control of a product by calculating its Recycling Rate and Recycling Cost/Profit and other relevant end of life parameters. It allows the determination of the weak points and the improvement possibilities of a product. ProdTect is based on a clear assessment workflow witch starts with a product modelling that minimizes the user input but builds a complete model of the product. In the calculation part, a profile/scenario architecture enables the user to take different market conditions into account and to flexibly optimize a wide range of parameters. In the results module, all relevant end of life parameters are presented in a transparent way. The improvement module helps closing the design loop by showing the improvement potential within the product. The improvement module uses a criteria based analysis of the product where all end of life relevant aspects are investigated and the results are presented as scores. All of the calculated results, improvement potentials as well as key product data can be printed in easy to use reports.