How to Start Becoming "Green" in 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Long before PDM and PLM became acronyms in our daily professional vocabulary, managing product data was once a paper intensive process that required a lot of energy and raw material to do. For many companies, both large and small, it still remains the case today.
Think of a typical scenario when you requested an engineering change. Most likely you started with a form which you filled out, placed it in a manila folder or plastic sleeve. Then you added more forms, perhaps a drawing or two. It gets passed around, and probably mailed with a bunch of other manila folders to another location where more reviews are done and information is added. Drawings get marked up, new ones made and added. Old drawings are trashed or shredded adding to the million cubic feet of land fill trash that don’t always make it to the recycling bin. Like an orchestral performance, papers, folders, plastic sleeves, ink and lead pens and pencils, erasers, either electric or done by hand, all combine together in a long symphony, playing over and over again just to make this one engineering change.
Multiply this by millions of engineering changes that happen every day across America in all types of industries where products are designed and manufactured.
Then think of all the items used in making an engineering change. The plastic wrapping and tapes, cardboards containers and tubes, staples, pens and pencils, chemicals in the ink and the white-outs to remove or correct errors, the toner and inkjet printer cartridges, the reams and rolls of copying and printing paper, the industries that manufacture the raw materials and the energy required to extract, refine, finish, process, print, fold, package and store these materials. This results in a higher rate of carbon footprints in our environment. Carbon footprint is a measure of the amount of carbon dioxide caused by the burning of fossil fuels for energy and transportation and indirect emissions focus on the whole lifecyle of products from procuring raw materials to waste management.
Multiply that by the millions of engineering changes that happen every day.
The change gets released and parts are made starting out as prototypes or pre-production samples. They are tested, validated, measured, inspected and ultimately destroyed. Making and destroying parts for the purpose of verifying that they meet the specifications consumes a lot of energy and raw materials. Think of the injection molding, milling, drilling, reaming, casting and stamping of the components, heat treating and chemical processing or plating, cleaning and then the assembly of these components into the finished part or assembly. Then of course the tools required, the molds, drills, reamers, cutters, cutting fluids, oil and grease and along the way - the packaging and the shipment of these tools to the factory where the parts are made. Don’t forget the diesel trucks that come in to pick up the scrap metal and waste from the production and processing of these parts.Multiply that by the hundred of thousands of production and prototype model shops that do this every day.
What happens if the change fails validation testing, does not meet customer requirements or improperly incorporated into the design. The whole process has to be repeated, expending more energy, consuming more raw materials and adding more carbon footprints in the environment.
Multiply that by the countless numbers of errors and mistakes made daily by humans.
This process could be repeated several times until the product is finally approved and then released into production. That’s not all as more paperwork is needed to certify the parts, document lab results, send out forms to customers for approvals, filling looseleaf plastic and cardboard binders with certification and approvals, inspection reports and required regulatory documents and new shelves or rows of bookcases are filled taking up floor space and requiring energy to maintain temperatures and provide security to protect.
So how can you help make your company “green”? With Teamcenter Engineering’s Unified Platform and applications including multi-CAD Integration, Engineering Process Management, Compliance Management, Bill of Materials Management, Document Control and Content Management, Mechatronics Process Management, Manufacturing Management, Community Collaboration, Lifecycle Visualization, Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul, Portfolio Program and Project Management, Simulation Process Management, Systems Engineering and Requirements Management and Supplier Relationship Management.
Of course you don’t need all of them to get started, but moving away from paper intensive processes and using a lot of the simulation tools available can drastically reduce wasteful energy consumption and cut down on landfill waste. The amount of carbon foot prints could be cut by more than half every year as more and more companies start using electronic product data management like Teamcenter. The energy saved by catching mistakes before they leave engineering, or the cost of scrap and raw material waste reduced by using simulation software to get the product designed right the first time and reducing the amount of testing and validation required.
Want to know how you can get started? Help make your company green with cost savings and helping our environment by attending the annual Siemens Connection PLMWorld Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, June 1st to 4th 2009.
__________________
Richard P. Meagher
Article provided by PLM World.
www.plmworld.org
at 7:11 AM Link to this Article 0 Comments
Comments:
Think of a typical scenario when you requested an engineering change. Most likely you started with a form which you filled out, placed it in a manila folder or plastic sleeve. Then you added more forms, perhaps a drawing or two. It gets passed around, and probably mailed with a bunch of other manila folders to another location where more reviews are done and information is added. Drawings get marked up, new ones made and added. Old drawings are trashed or shredded adding to the million cubic feet of land fill trash that don’t always make it to the recycling bin. Like an orchestral performance, papers, folders, plastic sleeves, ink and lead pens and pencils, erasers, either electric or done by hand, all combine together in a long symphony, playing over and over again just to make this one engineering change.
Multiply this by millions of engineering changes that happen every day across America in all types of industries where products are designed and manufactured.
Then think of all the items used in making an engineering change. The plastic wrapping and tapes, cardboards containers and tubes, staples, pens and pencils, chemicals in the ink and the white-outs to remove or correct errors, the toner and inkjet printer cartridges, the reams and rolls of copying and printing paper, the industries that manufacture the raw materials and the energy required to extract, refine, finish, process, print, fold, package and store these materials. This results in a higher rate of carbon footprints in our environment. Carbon footprint is a measure of the amount of carbon dioxide caused by the burning of fossil fuels for energy and transportation and indirect emissions focus on the whole lifecyle of products from procuring raw materials to waste management.
Multiply that by the millions of engineering changes that happen every day.
The change gets released and parts are made starting out as prototypes or pre-production samples. They are tested, validated, measured, inspected and ultimately destroyed. Making and destroying parts for the purpose of verifying that they meet the specifications consumes a lot of energy and raw materials. Think of the injection molding, milling, drilling, reaming, casting and stamping of the components, heat treating and chemical processing or plating, cleaning and then the assembly of these components into the finished part or assembly. Then of course the tools required, the molds, drills, reamers, cutters, cutting fluids, oil and grease and along the way - the packaging and the shipment of these tools to the factory where the parts are made. Don’t forget the diesel trucks that come in to pick up the scrap metal and waste from the production and processing of these parts.Multiply that by the hundred of thousands of production and prototype model shops that do this every day.
What happens if the change fails validation testing, does not meet customer requirements or improperly incorporated into the design. The whole process has to be repeated, expending more energy, consuming more raw materials and adding more carbon footprints in the environment.
Multiply that by the countless numbers of errors and mistakes made daily by humans.
This process could be repeated several times until the product is finally approved and then released into production. That’s not all as more paperwork is needed to certify the parts, document lab results, send out forms to customers for approvals, filling looseleaf plastic and cardboard binders with certification and approvals, inspection reports and required regulatory documents and new shelves or rows of bookcases are filled taking up floor space and requiring energy to maintain temperatures and provide security to protect.
So how can you help make your company “green”? With Teamcenter Engineering’s Unified Platform and applications including multi-CAD Integration, Engineering Process Management, Compliance Management, Bill of Materials Management, Document Control and Content Management, Mechatronics Process Management, Manufacturing Management, Community Collaboration, Lifecycle Visualization, Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul, Portfolio Program and Project Management, Simulation Process Management, Systems Engineering and Requirements Management and Supplier Relationship Management.
Of course you don’t need all of them to get started, but moving away from paper intensive processes and using a lot of the simulation tools available can drastically reduce wasteful energy consumption and cut down on landfill waste. The amount of carbon foot prints could be cut by more than half every year as more and more companies start using electronic product data management like Teamcenter. The energy saved by catching mistakes before they leave engineering, or the cost of scrap and raw material waste reduced by using simulation software to get the product designed right the first time and reducing the amount of testing and validation required.
Want to know how you can get started? Help make your company green with cost savings and helping our environment by attending the annual Siemens Connection PLMWorld Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, June 1st to 4th 2009.
__________________
Richard P. Meagher
Article provided by PLM World.
www.plmworld.org
at 7:11 AM Link to this Article
Comments:
###
Post a Comment