On November 11th, we celebrated our 5th anniversary of the PLM Green Global Alliance (PGGA) with a webinar where Jos Voskuil (me) interviewed the five other PGGA core team members about developments and experiences in their focus domain, potentially allowing for a broader discussion.
In our discussion, we focused on the trends and future directions of the PLM Green Global Alliance, emphasizing the intersection of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Sustainability.
The following post first appeared in PLM Green cofounder Jos Voskuil’s European weblog “PLM and Sustainability: talking with CIMPA” on 6 January 2025.
Most times in this PLM and Sustainability series, Klaus Brettschneider and Jos Voskuil from the PLM Green Global Alliance core team speak with PLM related vendors or service partners.
Our latest PLM Green Global Alliance post is a guest author contribution from Roger Franz who is a recognized authority on supply chain reporting for compliance with worldwide regulations, leveraging his decades of experience with engineering software tools and enterprise IT systems.
More than just unsightly “plastics pollution,” the volume of consumer plastics and lack of closed-loop recovery has created a significant micro-and nano-plastics problem. These invisible plastic particles are found around the world including within animal and human tissues. For several reasons, including a much smaller volume of plastic used in electrotechnical products compared to consumer plastics, and the generally longer life of hardware compared to the rapid turnover of consumer goods and packaging, the microplastics problem is not generally tagged as a major electronics problem – or at least not yet. Now is the time to be proactive.
The latest PLM Green Global Alliance post is authored by Klaus Brettschneider, principal moderator for our Life Cycle Assessment study theme and Director of Sustainability Products for PLM consultancy Linx-AS.
Engineers and designers in New Product Development (NPD) and Research & Development (R&D) play a critical role in shaping the sustainability of products, processes, and systems. A McKinsey study documented that while product R&D in the manufacturing industry only accounts for 5% of a product’s cost, the decisions made then influence up to 80% of the resources ultimately consumed, thus defining the product’s environmental footprint.
As a result, NPD and R&D departments are increasingly expected to incorporate aspects of sustainability into their product designs and usage. A holistic understanding of the product’s environmental impact throughout its entire life cycle, from the material sourcing to manufacturing, distribution, usage, repair, and end-of-life disposition becomes necessary.
We are happy to start the year with the next round of the PLM Global Green Alliances (PGGA) interview series on PLM and Sustainability. This year, we will speak with some new companies, and we will also revisit some of our previous guests to learn about their progress in developing or applying sustainability solutions as part of a PLM strategy.
While we have now spoken with Aras, Autodesk, CIMdata, Dassault Systèmes, PTC, SAP, Sustaira, and Transition Technologies PSC there are still many software companies rapidly developing product portfolios in sustainability. You can find these recorded discussions HERE.
This time, I and fellow PLM Green contributor Mark Reisig, were happy to meet virtually with Makersite, a company whose AI-powered Product Lifecycle Intelligence (PLI) software can bring together cost, environmental, compliance, and risk data in one place as a data foundation to make smarter, greener decisions with the deepest understanding of your supply chain.
The PLM Green Global Alliance (PGGA) announces that a new focus theme on Product Life Cycle Assessment has been established to be led by PLM Green founding moderator Klaus Brettschneider.
PLM Green’s mission is to educate, advocate, and collaborate across the boundaries of technical disciplines, different industries, and international borders to advance the use of Product Lifecycle Management strategies and technologies in the transition to a sustainable decarbonized circular economy. There are many applications of PLM that can contribute to this transition which PGGA has begun to study as referenced in PLM Green Examples.
Due to the wide variety of these PLM use cases, the PGGA originally created four core topical themes on examining the application of PLM within Sustainability, Green Energy, Circular Economy, and Climate Change. Each special interest group is led by one or more volunteer moderators that presently includes Jos Voskuil from TacitIT, Klaus Brettschneider from LinxAS, Mark Reisig from CIMdata, Patrice Quencez from CIMPA PLM Services, and Richard McFall from PLM Alliances. The PGGA also acknowledges theme contributions from Ilan Madjar of XLM Solutions, Hannes Lindfred from TrusTrace, Bjorn Fidjeland from PLM Partners, and Lionel Grealou from XlifeCycle.
The goal of the PLM Green discussion forum and working group on Product Life Cycle Assessment (PLCA), led by Klaus Brettschneider, is to investigate, validate, and promote the use of PLM-enabling business strategies and software technologies that can reduce the impact of products on the environment, most notably greenhouse gas emissions.
Product Life Cycle Assessments are pivotal in environmental protection, surpassing the singular focus on carbon impact and climate change. While carbon emissions are undeniably significant contributors to environmental degradation, PLCAs comprehensively evaluate a product’s environmental footprint throughout its entire life cycle. This holistic approach considers greenhouse gas emissions and factors like resource extraction, manufacturing processes, transportation, product use, and end-of-life disposal.
By scrutinizing each stage, PLCAs provide a nuanced understanding of a product’s overall impact, enabling businesses and consumers to make informed decisions. This broader perspective allows for identifying additional environmental stressors beyond carbon emissions, fostering more sustainable practices, and contributing to a well-rounded environmental conservation strategy.
We within the PLM Green Global Alliance will explore and document the role, potential, and value of PLM in addressing the challenge of limiting the impact of products on the sustainability of our planet’s environment.
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) strategies are crucial in facilitating and enhancing Product Life Cycle Assessments (PLCAs). PLM involves systematically managing a product’s entire lifecycle, from conception and design to manufacturing, use, and disposal. PLM provides a structured framework for organizing product-related data, streamlining communication across different stages, and ensuring process consistency.
When integrated with PLCAs, PLM strategies enable a more efficient and accurate assessment of environmental impacts. PLM systems help capture and centralize relevant data at each stage of a product’s lifecycle, making evaluating factors such as materials used, energy consumption, and waste generation easier. This integration promotes sustainability by facilitating informed decision-making, allowing businesses to optimize processes, reduce environmental footprints, and design products with a more comprehensive understanding of their lifecycle impacts.
PLM strategies, software, processes, and data act as the foundation for performing effective Product Life Cycle Assessments, enabling businesses to align environmental considerations with product development and management best practices.
To participate in our PLM Green theme study group on PLCA we invite you to first join the PLM Green LinkedIn Group then contact our moderator Klaus Brettschneider.
Here below we have started maintaining a curated list of featured white papers, blog posts, presentations, case studies, webinars, and interviews on the role of PLM-enabling technologies in performing product lifecycle assessments. We invite you to send us examples you have come across in your own work, company, industry, or country to info@plmgreenalliance.com.
This month we are pleased to feature a guest blog submitted by PLM Green Global Alliance follower Roger L. Franz. who shares a few things he has learned as a Principal in Engineering Information Technology when beginning to explore the state of PLM tools to Design for Sustainability.
Design for Sustainability is now a mainstream requirement from governments, regulators, and customers. In this brief we summarize some current trends in the area of PLM tools to support rapid engineering assessment of environmental footprint among the many engineering choices. Engineering and science-based tools to quickly guide hardware engineers toward material selection and product configuration choices with reduced environmental footprint are critical to our future.
This post was written and first published in May 2023 by PLM Green co-founder Jos Voskuil in his European Virtual Dutchman blog about PLM.
Last week I enjoyed visiting LiveWorx 2023 on behalf of the PLM Global Green Alliance. PTC had invited us to understand their sustainability ambitions and meet with the relevant people from PTC, partners, customers and several of my analyst friends. It felt like a reunion.
