Understanding your functional unit (FU)
What is your functional unit?
In PIQET your default functional unit (FU) is defined as your lowest level of packaging (e.g. sub-retail unit if it exists, if not retail unit if it exists, and so on and so forth).
When you start setting up parameters for your report writing, you may select the functional unit of your choice (E.g. you may express your results per kg of product or per retail unit or per year of sales). The results of the impact assessment are presented per the functional unit defined. This allows for an “apples-to-apples” comparison across scenarios.
For example:
You are a laundry manufacturer and want to compare the impact of selling your laundry liquid in:
Scenario A: normal strength product in a 1L bottle (enabling 50 standard loads)
Scenario B: 4x concentrated product in a 1L bottle (enabling 200 standard loads)
It is quite easy to realize that comparing 1 bottle to another doesn’t make much sense as for each scenario, the client buys a product that will enable him to wash more or less laundry – the “amount of functionality” carried by both bottles is not equivalent.
What is the functional unit multiplier?
With this in mind, we can see the FU multiplier as a way of scaling all the packaging scenarios across the same supply chain being compared to the same functional unit.
For example, if the functional unit is 1 retail unit of laundry detergent. However, one of the packaging scenarios is a wholesale pouch of detergent concentrate which contains enough for several retail units, the functional unit multiplier allows for convenient conversion between these packaging levels so that impactscan be accurately compared throughout the supply chain.
How do I define the functional unit multiplier?
To define your FU multiplier, you first need define the functional unit.
For example,
1L bottle (enabling 50 standard loads)
Next, find the relation of all your scenarios to each other when it comes to completing their function. If 1 unit of the product in Scenario 1 carries X function and the same 1 unit of product Scenario 2 carries 3X function, FU multiplier for Scenario 1 = 1 and FU multiplier for Scenario 2 = 3.
In most cases, your functional unit multiplier will simply be 1.
However, for specific cases of concentrates products (or water-free products that will be diluted at home), the functional unit multiplier may be required.
E.g.
Scenario A: normal strength product in a 1L bottle(enabling 50 standard loads)
Scenario B: 4x concentrated product in a 1L bottle (enabling 200 standard loads)
The Bottle B carries 4x more functionality then Bottle A.
In order to compare what is comparable, scenario A wouldhave a FU multiplier = 1 and scenario B a FU multiplier = 4.
Where and how is the functional unit multiplier used within PIQET?
PIQET will call on the FU multiplier in the Product section of each scenario. Thereby, when you enter the reporting stage, it will divide all scenarios by their respective FU multiplier in order to compare them against the same function.
E.g.
In the laundry liquid manufacturer example above, the results of scenario A will be divided by 1 and thus stay unchanged while the results of scenario B will be divided by 4, effectively scaling these results to the provision of the same functionality (e.g. “Carrying enough product to wash 50 standard loads of laundry”)