History and Current Status of Material Selection - Coursework Example

History and Current Status of Material Selection Introduction The basic purpose of this research report is to present an understanding the current scenario of eco designs prevailing in product manufacturing within different industries. In addition to this, the research also evolves around reviewing the future implications for materials in the coming time. Occasion of the Report This researcher is presented on the occasion of an international conference for material selection and the science evolving in the subject field. The conference will be held in London, from 10 to 12th February 2014. Purpose of the Report I will present the findings of my research work in collaboration with my fellow researchers, Mr. X and Mr. Y from ABC University. These individuals have helped me throughout this research work. Our research work evolves around focusing on the influence that product materials have on the environment throughout different stages of product lifecycle. The influence of product materials on the environment is not only studied at the time of production, but also at the time of extraction of raw material after the product is fully used or expired. In addition to this, paper would also explore the distribution mechanisms of extracted raw material and what are the uses of extracted raw material of the products. Although it is quite a well-known concept in the manufacturing industry, it is not widely and routinely implemented, and it should be further elaborated to reach its full potential (Mathieux, Brissaud and Zwolinski). Summary As the focus on environmental affects of material use din product manufacturing is increasing across the globe, researchers and industrialists are becoming more conscious about the international standards that are followed throughout. In this manner, emphasis is shifting towards reducing the life cycle impact of product raw material. This is because, the industrial rules and regulations followed by organizations in the world and the pressurize arising from major customers (product manufacturers), and organizations are now keeping a strict check on their material supply mechanisms. As there are already too many researches available on the impact assessment and design evaluation for environment tools, organizations are more ignorant towards environmental aspects of their raw material supplied to the customers. Though corporate social responsibility framework also requires strict environmental aspects to be incorporated in the procurement of raw material, suppliers still fail to comply with the issues. Under the pressure of customers’ demands, suppliers fail to integrate quality standards. Sometimes, customers also pressurize suppliers by presenting alternative point of views and expert opinions to define the quality of the product. The findings of this research report would present eco-designs of products that can be adopted for productive paradigms such as product, service, system and remanufacturing of systems. New innovative tools for developing products and methods to reduce the effect of product material on the ecological environment would also be discussed by the end of this research study. In this way, the findings would suggest ways of improving the activities in earlier phases of product design in order to achieve benefits (Mathieux, Brissaud and Zwolinski). The focus of political leaders and industrialists all around the world has been shifted to adopting environment friendly strategies for businesses since 1970s. The focus is laid on the said subject more importantly because of crisis in resource allocation and utilization, shrinking ozone layer and melting of ice in poles and the political interests of leaders. Two strategies on behalf of manufacturing industries have been identified namely “end-of-pipe approach” and “middle of pipe approach”, which are beneficial in minimizing waste and energy consumption. Then came a number of eco-designs for industries to follow which may include ISO 14062 enabling industries to implement environmental factors into designing and production of their products (Zwolinski and Brissaud). Following are the two most important drivers of developments made in the environment friendly designing and production of products on an industry level: • Law Law is considered as n integral driver of implementing environment friendly strategies in product designing and manufacturing processes. The strictest law of them all is EU directives, which require manufacturers of products to follow certain standards in product manufacturing, packaging and distri9bution mechanisms. These directives are also beneficial in determining end-of-life treatment of the products and the recycling rate that a manufacturer can achieve. Additionally, financial issues such as payments for treating the product after its life are over and the responsibility issues are also covered in EU directives. • Customer Expectations Customer expectation is an important concept in manufacturing industries across the globe, in order to design and manage the products to match with an exceed expectations. Especially in B2B industries, customers are more demanding of redesign of a product, which is environment friendly and helps the customers to establish a profound identity in the marketplace. In this way, it becomes essential for the manufacturers to establish a good reputation amongst consumers pertaining to business’s environmental policy. It can either apply to obtain a recognized eco-label or develop and diffuse to its customer’s products environmental profiles following recognized processes like the Environmental Product Declaration (Maxwell and Van Der Vorst). Initially, the ecofriendly designs and manufacturing of the product was required by sectors that are considered to be contributing more towards the ecological environment of the world. These might includes packaging industry, automotive industry and electronic industry of the world. With the passage of time, other industries such as construction, aviation, transportation, food and medicine manufacturing industries also started to implement eco designs in their product manufacturing and service delivery mechanisms. During late 1990s, the consumer markets witnessed that small and medium size businesses have also initiated to implement eco-design in their product manufacturing and service delivery mechanism. One important field in eco-designing is design for recycling (DFR), which is related to end-of-life treatment of the product. Designers of the product are required to keep in mind the end0of0life utilization of the product they are designing. It is not necessary for product designers to be an environmental expert, but they should know how the product’s material would react upon recycling. Product designers are required to consider following aspects while designing a product: 1. Quality of material, type of material, prices of the material 2. Number and type of fastening that the material would carry 3. Modularity and accessibility that exhibits the attributes of product architecture. Therefore, it can be suggested that 1990s witnessed the emergence of a number of DFR methods, which were based on Dismantling Conscious Design (DCD) approach. The DCD approach requires industries and product designers to be acknowledged of tactics that can optimize the harmful affects of dismantling product to the environment. During the last three years of last millennia, scientists and researchers identified that dismantling of the product is still harmful for the environment and very expensive for industries to implement. In the light of these concerns, scientists and researchers identified shredding procedures and sorting procedures as an alternative to dismantling strategy. The introduction of shredding procedures facilitated the DCD and SCD implementations and allowed industries to include both dismantling and shredding procedures at once within the production facilities. This strategy was useful for de pollution and re-utilization of complete or few parts of the products, which would be maximized once the product is processed through shredding for remaining fractions (Aboussouan, Russo and Pons; Van Schaik, Reuter and Heiskanen). As discussed previously, design teams do not practice eco design on a regular basis. This is because, the eco design tool they are using currently are too advanced with respect to what product designers require at the moment in their tools and practices. If it is necessary to consider the environment and recycling strategy at the time of designing the product, it is also necessary that the product designers should adopt eco-designing tools. For this reason, it becomes essential for industries to possess environmental impact assessment strategies that help them to build eco-designing tools integrated into engineers’ design tools within the organization. Such design tools can be a Product Life Cycle Management tool or a system that helps the organization to select appropriate material according to the national, industry and international standards. As the cost of consuming energy and acquiring material is increasing, so is the price of handling too much product coming to life end and ecologically wasted. As the industries across the globe are adapting to changing environmental directives, organizations now require bearing the cost of treating the product at life-end too. In this manner, it becomes essential for manufacturers of the product to revise their ideas about bringing down the costs involved in the end of life treatment of the product and the cost of material acquired to make an eco-friendly product. There are two focal strategies for doing so: 1. The manufacturer pays an external firm to recover and recycle its products. In this case, the recycling will certainly be limited to the material recovery, because of the diversity of the products treated by the external recycling firms (Mathieux, Brissaud and Zwolinski). 2. The manufacturer recover the products himself to try to make a benefit while keeping more added value on his product than those obtained by the simple price of the recycled materials (Mathieux, Brissaud and Zwolinski). In the modern business world, manufacturer of products are required to adopt remanufacturing tactics, which were never defined previously. Also, manufacturers are also required to use those materials only that enhance the performance delivery ability of the products they supply in the market. The first strategy in this regard can be The Product Service System Approach, which requires providing service solutions to customers. Another tactic to achieve this objective is the remanufacturing processes, which require recycling, and re-distribution of the product in the marketplace (Ferrao and Amaral). Concluding Remarks The current research work enabled the author of this report to present ideas about product eco design and its implications within different industries. The review of literature from past pertaining to the subject understudy has enabled the researcher to polish his skills pertaining to carrying out research in a given subject. This will be helpful in carrying out practical research in the author’s field of interest and enabled him to explore those dimensions of subject topic, which can either be tested only or can be explored with the help of reviewing literature or carrying out primary research. Finally, this activity also enabled the author of the current research report to understand how information can be manipulated into important data for reaching objectives of the research work. It is eminent, that the current survey exercise would help the author of the report to develop effective recommendations for respective industries, in which he is going to conduct future research works. Works Cited Aboussouan, L, et al. "Steel scrap fragmentation by shredders." Powder Technology 105.1999 (1999): 288-294. Print. Ferrao, P and J. Amaral. "Design for recycling in the automotive industry: new approaches and new tools." Journal of Engineering Design 17.5 (2006): 447-462. Print. Mathieux, F, D Brissaud and P. Zwolinski. "Product Ecodesign And Materials: Current Status And Future Prospects." 1st International seminar on Society & Materials. Seville: - European Commission DG Joint Research Centre, 2007. 1-10. Print. Maxwell, D and R. Van Der Vorst. "Functional and systems aspects of the sustainable product and service development approach for industry." Journal of Cleaner Production 14.17 (2006): 1466-1479. Print. Van Schaik, A, M A Reuter and K. Heiskanen. "The infuence of particle size reduction and liberation on the recycling rate of end-of-life vehicles." Minerals Engineering 17.2 (2004): 331-347. Print. Zwolinski, P and D. Brissaud. "Integrated design of remanufacturable products based on product profiles." Journal of Cleaner Production 14.16 (2006): 1333-1345. Print. Read More