Sustainable maintenance and repair Services in the Automotive Industry

Companies are changing their nature, shifting from product manufacturers into providers of knowledge-intensive systemic solutions. As a consequence a new paradigm, called Product-Service, is emerging, proposed by many authors also as a possible answer to sustainability challenges. One of the industrial contexts where Product-Service concepts have been tested and implemented as a potential solution to its environmental problems is the automotive one. The applications of the sustainability principles in this industry have mainly focused on technological innovation at the level of product or through the provision of new services. Conversely, automotive companies have not concentrated their efforts on promoting sustainable actions on organizing and managing repair and maintenance services, their supporting network and the related infrastructure configuration. In such a context the purpose of this paper is to overcome the aforesaid lacks by the development a model based on a Life Cycle Assessment approach to help the auto-repair industry to measure, monitor and improve its performances to achieve economical, environmental and competitive advantages. An empirical application in a body repair workshop is implemented in order to validate the proposed model and to verify its applicability and significance.