The research presented in this paper examined the impact assessment and improvement analysis steps in the life-cycle assessment of the production of a printer. The impact assessment step assesses the possible impacts on human health; ecological quality and natural resources attributed to the inventory data such as the energy and resource usage, as well as environmental emissions produced during the life-cycle of the product. Various scoring criteria have been developed, which are weighted accordingly using the analytical hierarchy process method. The criterion scores and weights are combined to obtain a single figure of environmental merit for each component. The improvement analysis step appraises the needs and opportunities to reduce the environmental burden associated with resource use and environmental emissions throughout the life cycle of the product. The individual component scores are combined into a final environmental score representing the overall environmental quality of the printer. A software tool has been developed to perform the necessary computations. This final figure has environmental and commercial importance. It is useful in bench-marking a product against that of competitors’, and also in assessing improvements to environmental quality due to changes to the product and its related processes or activities.

Life-cycle Assessment, Environmental Impacts, Analytical Hierarchy Process, Manufacturing