Can sustainability equal profitability?
Published Sun 9 Nov 2008
A growing focus on green products puts yet another pressure on manufacturers – Richard Blatcher of Autodesk asks how do they integrate the need for sustainability with the need to remain competitive?
Like “greenness” in general, the concept of sustainability is currently surrounded by a miasma of confusion, double-talk and tokenism. We all know that operations should be careful about their use of resources and ensure that their products won’t be found in overflowing landfill sites too early on in their lifetime. However, with all the other pressures surrounding manufacturing at the moment, having ensured compliance to current regulations, it’s easy to put any further action on the back burner until the future looks brighter.
However increasingly, sustainability is becoming not just a differentiator, but an accepted part of doing business in the global economy. Besides, using less energy in the production process lowers overhead and product costs. Using fewer materials also cuts costs and switching to more sustainable products may or may not reduce costs at the front end, but will likely reduce waste, emissions and pollution and perhaps avoid shortages or price increases for less sustainable material in the future.
Plus, with consumers claiming they are willing to pay a premium for safe, healthy, green products, brands that are seen to be lowering their environmental impact can be more successful in attracting and retaining customers.
So how do manufacturers cut through the fog surrounding the idea of sustainability and emerge with a proactive and workable policy that can benefit both business and environment? One step is to focus on the product itself; how it is designed and manufactured, how it will be used and maintained and ultimately, how it will be disposed of – in fact, its complete lifecycle.
Using latest design methodology such as digital prototyping with a single 3D model which evolves from concept through to production, design teams can evaluate opportunities to reduce environmental impact throughout the manufacturing process. As the model develops it becomes a more accurate digital prototype of the product, reflecting material attributes such as weight, strength and recycled content – plus process attributes such as energy intensity and water consumption.
The digital prototype will be able to predict the performance of materials and whether there are suitable alternatives. It can also demonstrate the impact of any changes on the product’s characteristics and the energy consumed during its manufacture. Armed with such data, design engineers can quickly and cost-effectively experiment with different material and process variables to reach the optimum combination.
To help this, Autodesk’s Sustainable Materials Assistant, an add-on for Inventor 2009, is now available from Autodesk Labs (http://labs.autodesk.com). This includes an expanded materials library with new property fields populated with information about the toxicity, recyclability, carbon footprint and regulatory compliance issues of any materials.
Also, a sustainability report function, accessible from Inventor’s Bill of Materials Editor, analyses and aggregates the properties based on the materials used in a given design option. As this report can be presented in HTML format, it can provide a discussion document enabling design teams to make informed and responsible product decisions.
To be truly sustainable, a product needs to lend itself to easy maintenance, be designed for longevity and be easy either recycled or otherwise disposed of. Actual features will, of course vary according to the product itself and the market. However, a designer may, for example, decide to substitute recycled plastic for new wood in playground equipment; enable fast, cost-effective re-manufacture by using only standard interchangeable parts of a product or facilitate quick disassembly and recycling by using a single bolt to assemble the back to an office chair frame.
By using the assembly design features in Inventor, users can examine the parts and the process needed to dismantle a product and repurpose its materials. This helps in the maintenance of a product and also simplifies recycling and lowers labour costs.
Using the digital model and stress analysis, designers can even predict where the product will eventually fail. A truly efficient operation could then use this information to estimate the type and number of spare parts needed in the future.
As the product design moves from concept through engineering and on to production it can continue to be tested, modified and optimised without the need for physical prototypes. Multiple options can be saved at any stage, enabling the pursuit of more than one strategy in parallel where needed. If the market or regulatory environment changes, the product can quickly be optimised to meet the latest conditions, so keeping options open as long as needed.
Automated bills of materials help to eliminate over-ordering and subsequent waste – and when held in an efficient data management system for future use they can provide and audit or record of materials used for regulation or voluntary framework purposes. Effective data management also helps the re-use of design data, encouraging a policy of standard, modular components which can be saved and re-purposed ensuring greater longevity of the product.
Many industry commentators believe that the right software will become an increasingly important tool to help manufacturers become proactive about sustainable design, by allowing them to make better decisions in the early stages of product development – when they are the most effective. It’s hoped that the increasing take up of best practices such as digital prototyping will add clarity to the sustainability question and ensure that more manufacturers consider the entire product lifecycle to the benefit, not just of the environment, but to their bottom line.
