Hardware manufacturers must consider environmental sustainability in their emerging or evolving operations, not least in product and system development. The design phase of any project has the most potential for achieving sustainability within a product or part. Decisions made affect the sustainability of the manufacturing process, how environmentally friendly the part will be in operation, and what happens at the end of life when it is beyond repair or remanufacture.
Manufacturers need to consider whether the selected material is making the part too heavy, or whether the coating makes it more difficult to recycle. Other considerations include where the material is sourced from – is it the opposite side of the planet, when a suitable alternative could be sourced locally?
Asking these questions before manufacture is essential. Responsible, forward-thinking manufacturers will also focus on user friendliness and ensure that parts are serviceable, allowing maintenance, repair and remanufacture.
Global drive
The global drive for more sustainable engineering design is echoed in many of the R&D projects coming to the design engineering team here at the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS).
Sustainable projects are increasingly much more likely to receive funding for R&D and to attract investment, providing a real competitive edge to businesses on the front foot.
Linear models, where a part goes to landfill after use, are being replaced by circular models where the hardware, or elements of it, are reused. Instead of cradle-to-grave, design should look to achieve a ‘cradle-to-cradle’ model, with a new lease of life at the end.
An architect's impression of how the new NMIS headquarters will look once they open next year
There are many benefits to using recyclable materials. Virgin material is scarce, rarely local to the UK, and sourcing it can be incredibly harmful to the planet and people. Using a material that has been recycled will reduce carbon footprint and extend the lifecycle of the material. They can also bring reduced material costs.
When it comes to sustainable design however, recycling sits relatively low in terms of impact. Manufacturers who focus purely on recycling material at the end of life will be left behind. Within the design engineering team at NMIS, we work to a hierarchical ‘five R strategy’, which shows the order of precedence.
The five R strategy
The first 'R', with the highest impact, is rethink: improving the utilisation of a product and moving away from the linear model. Where it is typical to sell a product to every user, for example, businesses might consider alternative models such as lease, hire or ‘servitisation’, or it might be that a product can have additional functionality built in to negate the need for multiple products.
Next on the list is reduce, where manufacturers should consider optimising parts, minimising the energy and material use in manufacturing as much as possible. Cutting back on the number of fasteners and the total part count, reducing size and material usage, ensuring every feature has a function, and minimising energy usage are all important considerations in the design phase. Reduced costs in the long term are an additional benefit.
Remake is the third focus, with the goal of designing a part that can easily be restored or serviced to 'as new' condition. Materials that allow for repair are preferred, and it is important that the design can be disassembled and easily inspected and cleaned, enabling remanufacture, repurposing and refurbishment as appropriate.
Recycling comes next. At design phase, it is important to lock in materials that can be easily recycled, avoiding the use of additives, coatings and painted finishes that make recycling harder. Avoiding mixed material components also helps. Using materials which have already been recycled or recovered in your design is another worthwhile consideration, if a robust, reliable and repeatable source is available.
The last 'R' of the five is recover. If all else fails, manufacturers might incinerate materials at their end of life to recover energy. At design phase, using materials that give off harmful fumes when burned should be avoided and replaced with materials that have high combustion energy. This is a critical final option if none of the previous 4 R's have been possible.
Bringing sustainable design to manufacture
The design phase greatly influences environmental impact, and it is irresponsible for manufacturers not to consider circular strategies by design. These five strategies can transition product lifecycles from a linear to a circular economy.
Sustainable design applies to all sectors, but it is more challenging for incumbent products and systems – particularly in high integrity sectors, where there are strict regulations, codes and standards. Altering designs can be more complicated, with costs from redesign, requalification and certification often prohibitive.
At NMIS, the design engineering team is completely agnostic – we're not tied to any sectors or technologies, meaning we redeploy our significant and diverse industry experience and the tools we've developed within any project. As part of the High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult family, we consider ourselves process experts instead of application experts. We want your projects to be successful – bringing the very best of manufacturing back to Scotland and the wider UK with sustainable solutions.
You might be surprised by the number of companies we encounter – even those seeking to develop new net zero-focused technologies – who have failed to consider the sustainability of hardware, due to being focused on more efficient operational performance. These manufacturers should embrace circularity to enhance the through-life sustainability of their technologies.
As we race closer towards net zero targets, we're helping the businesses we work with through R&D support. Those that are not sustainable will eventually fail to secure investment. The manufacturers leading the way here are set to see a real competitive advantage as consumers, industry and governments invest in the future.
Further information on this topic can be found in the Product Design Scotland Toolkit.
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.