Tag Archives: Lifecycle Assessment

Life Cycle Assessments for Design Engineers in NPD and R&D

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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.

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PLM Green Announces Life Cycle Assessment Theme

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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.

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PLM Tools to Design for Sustainability

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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.

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Discussing Sustainability with Sustaira

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The PLM Green Global Alliance recently hosted its fourth interview and panel discussion exploring how PLM-enabling technologies support the sustainability imperative. These interviews expand upon our earlier articles on the Intersection of PLM and Sustainability by examining the progress towards sustainability being made by solution providers, their consulting partners and industry customers.

This time, PLM Green co-founder Jos Voskuil and Climate Change Moderator Klaus Brettschneider met with the founder and CEO of Sustaira, Vincent de la Mar. Sustaira provides the infrastructure and expertise for building sustainability apps based on the low-code development platform Mendix. Through its use of and relationship with Mendix, a 2018 acquisition by Siemens, Sustaira is a Siemens Digital Industries ecosystem partner as announced earlier this year.

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Dassault Systèmes Introduces Life Cycle Assessment Solution

VELIZY-VILLACOUBLAY, France — February 24, 2022 — Dassault Systèmes (Euronext Paris: FR0014003TT8, DSY.PA) today announced the launch of “Sustainable Innovation Intelligence,” its life cycle assessment solution that enables companies to minimize the environmental impacts of the products, materials and processes they create and help drive the circular economy. Fully embedded in Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform and covering the entire value chain, the cloud-based solution uniquely integrates the ecoinvent database on the impacts of more than 18,000 industrial and agricultural processes, into virtual design, product development, manufacturing engineering, operations and logistics.

Image courtesy of Dassault Systèmes at https://www.3ds.com/newsroom/

“Collectively building a sustainable economy requires transforming the sustainable innovation process, from extracting raw materials to usage, reuse and recycling,” said Florence Verzelen, Executive Vice President, Industry, Marketing and Sustainability, Dassault Systèmes.  “Whether in manufacturing, infrastructure and cities or life sciences, data science experiences that combine LCA capabilities with virtual twin technology offer companies new ways to innovate by understanding how their decisions affect natural resources, ecosystems and health.  Through our 3DEXPERIENCE platform, we aim to help companies contribute to the United Nations’ ‘Decade of Action’ and thrive while doing so.”

Many businesses are working to reduce emissions in line with climate science and are aiming to develop more circular business models by 2030 by redesigning their product lines and manufacturing systems. However, most business solutions on the market today are still focused on measuring the footprint of yesterday’s economy, retroactively. To drive disruptive sustainable innovation, companies need to integrate ecodesign principles in the upstream thinking about their future products and processes before there is any environmental impact in the real world. Virtual universes provide this opportunity.

By combining LCA data with virtual twin technology, “Sustainable Innovation Intelligence” will empower LCA specialists, industrial designers, product engineers and manufacturing engineers to create circular life cycles by setting up sustainability requirements early on and collaboratively driving them throughout the design, product development and manufacturing engineering phases.  It integrates supply of materials, design, manufacturing, operations, logistics, sales, marketing, and end-of-life management, providing real-time insights that allow teams to identify problems or improvements virtually before acting on them, and ensure traceability and reliability.

“Sustainable Innovation Intelligence” relies on the life cycle inventory database of the not-for-profit ecoinvent Association, whose datasets measure and provide information on the natural resources withdrawn from the environment, the pollution released into water and soil, the emissions released into air, the products demanded from other processes, and the products, co-products and waste produced in diverse sectors on global and regional levels.

“Our partnership with Dassault Systèmes is the first one with a software company in which our database is used at the very beginning of the product and manufacturing engineering processes for sustainability assessments,” said Emilia Moreno Ruiz, Interim Director, ecoinvent Association. “LCA brings the metrics needed to evaluate environmental impacts across the product lifecycle.  Integrating that with virtual twin technology opens new possibilities to address these impacts early on.”

Read the original press release HERE.

Discussing Sustainability with PLM Solution Provider SAP

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The PLM Green Global Alliance recently hosted its first in a series of panel discussions and interviews that will explore sustainability topics with enterprise PLM solution providers. These forums will extend our recent article on the Intersection of PLM and Sustainability where we next hope to learn about examples of progress in sustainability being made by solution providers, their partners and customers.

Our inaugural interview was with Darren West, Product Manager Lead for SAP’s Circular Economy Solutions, who is based in the United Kingdom. We were excited to speak with SAP after reading their numerous recent announcements about the importance of sustainability and hear how they “walk the talk.”

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Digital Sustainability: The Path to Net Zero from Autodesk

The whitepaper “Digital Sustainability: The Path to Net Zero for Design & Manufacturing and Architectural Engineering & Construction Industries” explores the growing importance of sustainability goals for companies in AEC and MFG markets across Europe. Frost & Sullivan in partnership with Autodesk published this whitepaper with results of a quantitative survey of 600 organizations and summaries of in-depth qualitative interviews.

The whitepaper points out how important it is to consider the carbon footprint already “baked in” during the development and design phase of products to facilitate a successful carbon reduction and a circular economy once it is actually produced. In several examples it describes how system thinking, connecting the dots, and looking at products and processes holistically will help reach new levels of sustainability. It addresses Product Lifecycle Management approaches like the usage of BIM or the realization of digital twins to support transparency across the supply chain. Other examples are focused on the usage of new technologies like robotics and 3D to achieve sustainability goals.

The survey results document that the importance of sustainability goals has increased at the C-level and that they are becoming more relevant company strategies Several reasons for this development are discussed as well as the regional nuances in different geo markets. The survey emphasizes the shift of focus from Scope 1 and 2 emission reporting to the reduction on Scope 3 emission that includes the supply chain challenge. The lack of trustworthy data, IT systems to collect and manage them, and the tracing transparency like Product Passports or track-and-trace solutions are only few of the analyzed issues.

Read more by downloading the paper from Autodesk HERE.

European Green Digital Coalition Launched

Members of the new European Green Digital Coalition (EGDC) are committing to establish science-based targets for reducing GHG by 2030 and to become climate neutral or net-zero no later than 2040. Announced by the European Commission: “The CEOs of 26 European companies have signed a Declaration to support the Green and Digital Transformation of the EU. They have formed a European Green Digital Coalition, committing on behalf of their companies to take action in the following areas:

  • To invest in the development and deployment of greener digital technologies & services that are more energy and material efficient,
  • Develop methods and tools to measure the net impact of green digital technologies on the environment and climate by joining forces with NGOs and relevant expert organisations, and
  • Co-create with representatives of others sectors recommendations and guidelines for green digital transformation of these sectors that benefits environment, society and economy.

The European Green Digital Coalition will help not only the tech sector to become more sustainable, circular and a zero polluter, but also to support sustainability goals of other priority sectors such as energy, transport, agriculture, and construction while contributing to an innovative, inclusive and resilient society. Its members will work closely with the European Commission and others to deliver on their commitments and will report regularly on progress made. In 2022, the first available results and progress reports will be presented. 45 SMEs and startups support the European Green Digital Coalition and many will take the sustainability commitments to join in the near future.”

Learn more why European business leaders think that climate change and environmental degradation represents an existential threat at https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/companies-take-action-support-green-and-digital-transformation-eu.