Calculate product carbon footprint with 4cost

Companies in all sectors are faced with the challenge of making their environmental impact transparent and actively reducing it. In the industrial sector in particular, the carbon footprint of products is coming into focus: it measures how many greenhouse gas emissions are generated throughout the entire life cycle of a product – from the extraction of raw materials through production and use to disposal. This key figure is not only becoming increasingly important for the fulfilment of legal requirements and customer wishes, but is also a decisive competitive factor. A sound understanding of one’s own emissions is the basis for effective decarbonisation measures and long-term business success.

Common obstacles in determining the product carbon footprint

Determining the carbon footprint of industrial products over their entire life cycle presents companies with various challenges. Firstly, data collection is complex: information from various sources, such as raw materials, transport routes, energy consumption and production processes, must be collected in order to make a precise calculation. In many companies, however, this data is spread across different departments, available in different formats or only incompletely documented. This fragmentation makes it difficult to gain a consistent and comprehensible overview of all relevant emissions. The early idea, concept and development phases are particularly challenging, as data is generally not yet available.

Another obstacle is the methodological complexity. Calculating the product carbon footprint requires in-depth knowledge of the relevant norms and standards as well as all value-adding processes. Every industry and every product has its own specific characteristics that need to be factored into the calculation. In practice, there is often a lack of internal expertise to fulfil these requirements: Errors in system delimitation, in the selection of emission factors or in the categorisation of upstream and downstream processes can lead to inaccurate or barely comparable results.

Finally, the time and resources required should not be underestimated. Especially with complex product portfolios, manually recording and analysing all relevant parameters can tie up enormous amounts of personnel and time. Without supporting tools, it is almost impossible for many companies to calculate the product carbon footprint efficiently, regularly and at a high level of quality in order to communicate it transparently.

The solution: Specialised software for calculating the product carbon footprint

More and more companies are turning to specialised software solutions to effectively address the challenges of calculating the product carbon footprint. The costing software 4cost-aces/sustain is designed to record and link data from production, packaging, transport and disposal and convert it into valid results. The software automates many previously time-consuming work steps, reduces sources of error and ensures reliable recording of all emission sources along the entire product life cycle.

Especially in production, the heart of many industrial companies, the specialised costing software from 4cost offers great advantages. Energy consumption, material usage and process data can be easily recorded or calculated with AI support, simulated and analysed. This gives companies an exact picture of the emissions generated during the manufacture of their products. Different manufacturing sites, production processes or energy sources can be mapped in detail and analysed in a targeted manner in order to introduce specific improvement measures and make their contribution to decarbonisation measurable.

Packaging also plays a decisive role in the carbon footprint of a product. 4cost-aces/sustain makes it possible to precisely record materials, quantities and the respective life cycles of packaging. The effects of different packaging solutions – such as recycled content, material alternatives or reusable solutions – are made transparent. This allows companies to make informed decisions on how to reduce emissions through optimised packaging concepts and at the same time meet environmental requirements or customer wishes.

When transporting products, the 4cost costing software ensures seamless tracking of emissions along the supply chain. It includes all relevant means of transport, routes and intermediate storage and can even simulate various scenarios, such as switching to lower-emission transport options. This transparency not only helps companies to realistically map their carbon footprint, but also to implement targeted strategies for more sustainable logistics processes and visualise potential savings.

In addition, 4cost-aces/sustain enables all emissions at the end of a product’s life to be accurately taken into account – from disposal and recycling to possible recirculation in the production process. Companies can thus compare the climate impact of different disposal options and obtain valuable data to make the entire life cycle more sustainable. Thanks to its comprehensive data basis and ease of use, the software supports companies of all sizes in meeting the requirements of customers, legislators and their own sustainability strategy —and at a new level of quality that can hardly be achieved with conventional methods.

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Successful costing with 4cost

Improve the sustainability of your products

Take advantage of the opportunities offered by a transparent and accurate carbon footprint for your products. Only those who know their emissions can take targeted measures, drive innovation and position themselves successfully in the market. With costing software from 4cost, you can actively strengthen your competitiveness and your image as a forward-looking company.

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Our international clients report on their success with 4cost

“The comparison of providers revealed, that 4cost achieved the highest score. We were particularly convinced by the fact that 4cost’s solutions can be used for all commodities, regardless of technology. Equally decisive was the enormous speed with which cost estimates are possible despite limited information.” Christian Ahrens Team leader of the Value Engineering department, Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH “A major advantage of the 4cost software is the seamless interlocking of the two costing approaches, top-down and bottom-up. This appeals to a wide variety of cost estimators and ensures a consistent cost view without losing information across all project phases.” Alexander Nordmeyer Value Engineer, Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH “The departments experience made with the costing software from 4cost are very positive and associated with high savings. By increasing transparency in the cost structures, a monetary benefit in the seven-digit range can already be recorded. We have made the right decision in our selection process and are very happy about our success!” Manfred Billes Department head of the EEPC team, MAN “From small start-ups to large corporations, costs must be constantly kept in view and controlled, especially in these difficult times. This succeeds very well with the 4cost software and I believe we can generate real added value for our companies.” Sarah Wörz Officer, Digitalisierungszentrum Ostwürttemberg “The consistent calculation method of the 4cost tools convinced us right from the start. Very quickly we realised, that this methodology supports our needs in calculation, value engineering, purchasing and engineering excellently.” Frank Hoffmann Head of Supply Chain Management, Rheinmetall Electronics GmbH “With 4cost's modern parametric calculation models it is possible to estimate good and valid costs already in phases with limited detail of knowledge. In order to establish this, we not only made use of 4cost's software solutions, but also using their expertise in value engineering.” Senior staff member Purchasing department, Rolls-Royce “The 4cost-aces interface is user-friendly and logically structured, especially when compared to other cost estimation tools. This makes it easier to use the tool even for occasional users.” Thomas Fiedler Head of Cost Architecture A30X, Future Projects & Costing Performance, Airbus Deutschland “We decided on 4cost because we see a significant added value for our calculation and value analysis in a consistent approach from quick cost estimates to detailed calculations. We focus now on the main cost drivers and identify areas with the greatest potential for cost optimization.” Werner Seifried Technical Director, Liebherr-Hydraulikbagger GmbH (2009) “With 4cost we have a partner with whom we are implementing our objective of a long-term partnership in the areas of cost estimation, value analysis and cost structure analysis. We will continue to establish 4cost's solutions and use them even more intensively in the future, because the added value is obvious.” Werner Seifried Technical Director, Liebherr-Hydraulikbagger GmbH (2009) “With the parametric cost estimate from 4cost-aces, we are fast and reliably in estimating new assemblies and examine scenarios.” “With the 4cost-structure calculation tool, we are tracking target costs and manage our projects, including history and versioning.” Peter Schmidt Value analysis department, Liebherr-Hydraulikbagger GmbH (2009) “The partnership-based cooperation with 4cost enables us to arrive at rapid cost estimates for our projects both in-house and directly at our customers site. I would not have expected a calculation of the costs at such an early stage in the product development process with such depth, consideration of variants and meaningfulness of the answers!” Matthias Miesbeck Project engineer, HOLZER Firmengruppe “We were enthusiastic about the speed and cost transparency during the 4cost workshops. We used the results from the workshops as a base for our business case analysis. We froze the cost target as cost reference for the subsequent development process and continuously referenced and checked on them.” Hinrik Weber Head of the optoelectronics business unit, Pepperl+Fuchs “The speed in which the costs are determined is impressive with this method. Elaborate work plans do not have to be predefined and evaluated, because the parametric approach of 4cost-aces is based on material and value-added approaches.” Ernst Tabel Project manager, Pepperl+Fuchs “With 4cost-aces we are able to arrive at valid cost statements very quickly. Compared to a bottom-up calculation that typically takes several weeks, we only need one to three days for the first cost assessment.” Gregor Schwab Head of Orders & Offers, Production, EADS Defence & Security “In addition to the drastic time advantage of this costing method, the workshops have another effect that should not be underestimated: all participants agree on a common costing basis during the meetings and evaluate it in detail. The acceptance of the calculated cost values is very high due to the involvement of all participants.” Gregor Schwab Head of Orders & Offers, Production, EADS Defence & Security “The workshop with the 4cost team was convincing both in terms of methodology and result. We were getting an idea of how the parametric approach of the 4cost-aces costing software works. Many new possibilities could now be approached in our daily work.” Stefan Buchwald Strategic buyer, BARD Engineering “The 4cost solutions enable us to become an extended workbench to the costing departments of companies in our region.” Peter Schmidt Head, Digitalisierungszentrum Ostwürttemberg “The early breakdown of product and project costs with 4cost-aces not only offers us a high level of cost transparency, but in particular shows us optimisation potential for development and design. On the one hand, we are thus able to forecast future manufacturing costs in the case of design changes and on the other hand, to independently check manufacturing costs of already existing designs.” Martin Klotz Product Cost Engineer, Liebherr-Werk Biberach GmbH “The simplicity and speed of creating and comparing different technical, location and quantity scenarios in 4cost-aces is impressive.” Andreas Müller Senior Operations and Procurement Manager, AutoFlight Europe “Thanks to the workshop with 4cost, we received meaningful and transparent results in a short time, which allows us to take measures at an early stage to secure the profitability of our products.” Andreas Müller Senior Operations and Procurement Manager, AutoFlight Europe “The use of 4cost-aces has led to a considerable improvement in our efficiency, as we calculate up to 75 % faster. Cost calculations that would otherwise take us several weeks to complete are done within a few days with 4cost-aces.” Hanno Pieles Director Business Unit Performance, newboxes “4cost-aces has become a valuable tool for our company because we use it to help our clients increase their cost transparency significantly and take their cost management to the next level.” Hanno Pieles Director Business Unit Performance, newboxes "Parametric costing enables us to create valid calculations in the early quotation phases with relatively little effort." Tim Wiedemann Systems Engineer, MT Aerospace AG “Thanks to 4cost-aces, we can plan and implement our projects more efficiently. The software has established itself as an indispensable tool in our development process and contributes significantly to the success of our projects.” Hannes Büttner Head of Projects & Value Analysis, BAUER Maschinen GmbH “The calculations using parametrics are incredibly fast compared to the bottom-up approach, which allows us to react quickly to new requirements and designs. The design-to-cost process is streamlined and requires fewer resources.” Hannes Büttner Head of Projects & Value Analysis, BAUER Maschinen GmbH “With the introduction of 4cost-aces, we have consistently enhanced our established processes. Following an intensive testing and implementation phase, nearly all cost estimates at MTG are now carried out using 4cost-aces.” Michael Rudius Head of Operations, MTG Marinetechnik GmbH “With 4cost-aces, we can now perform calculations even in areas where we previously had to rely on approximate values—such as for project management, documentation, software, and maintenance costs.” Michael Rudius Head of Operations, MTG Marinetechnik GmbH Rheinmetall MAN digiZ Rolls-Royce Airbus Liebherr Holzer Pepperl+Fuchs EADS BARD AutoFlight Europe GmbH newboxes GmbH MT Aerospace AG BAUER Maschinen GmbH MTG Marinetechnik GmbH