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Design for Environment Meeting the needs of an increasingly eco-conscious marketplace, DFMA allows product designers to conduct an environmental assessment during the concept stage of design, where they can evaluate the impact of material selection as well as account for the end-of-life status of their product. The analysis prompts designers to select from the DFMA database the materials they prefer to use or avoid, then reveals the proportions (by weight) of those materials in the product. It also estimates and designates the proportions of product that go to different end-of-life destinations, including reuse, recycling, landfill and incineration. These measures help manufacturers meet such requirements as the European Union’s Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) regulations. Q & A about Design for Environment How does adding a Design for Environment capability to the Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc., Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA™) software help manufacturers achieve “green” or “sustainable” programs for their products? This new DFE capability identifies and rates materials for their
compliance to changing standards regarding toxicity and end-of-life
destinations. Our motivation for adding this software enhancement
largely comes from introduction of such EU legislation as the Waste
from Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) directive and the
Motor Vehicles directive. Manufacturers must demonstrate that their
new products don’t contain certain banned materials—Restriction of
Hazardous Substances (RoHS) compliance—and that a certain proportion
of the product is reusable or recyclable at end-of-life. How does the DFE capability in the DFMA software differ from sustainability efforts already underway in product engineering companies? DFMA supports sustainability initiatives by raising awareness of recycling and remanufacturing options at the design level. The software currently does not include additional life-cycle analysis (LCA) costs or assessment of disassembly effectiveness. DFMA product simplification with DFE capability helps compress greater performance into fewer parts—guiding design engineers to use the most sustainable and cost-effective materials and manufacturing processes. DFMA product evaluation opens numerous doors to sustainable, innovative design. What information is in the DFE portion of DFMA? The DFE portion is integrated with the materials library of the DFM Concurrent Costing database of DFMA. This library gives designers a comprehensive understanding of the costs to manufacture parts by means of turret pressworking, laser and plasma cutting, sheet metal stamping with a variety of dies, machining, structural foam molding, plastic extrusion, injection molding, thermoforming, blow molding, cold and hot die casting, hot forging, powder metal processing, sand casting, investment casting and metal injection molding. Existing DFMA data for each individual material associated with the above shape-forming processes has been expanded to include DFE information. Materials in the software are now classified for the designer as ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals and other, and they are categorized as “preferred,” “non-preferred” and “avoid.” The “avoid” category will include materials on the EPA banned substances list, and─for European software─materials that will prevent RoHS compliance. The software estimates and designates the proportions of product that go to different end-of-life destinations, including reuse, recycling, landfill and incineration. During DFE analysis, items in the product that are designated to be recycled, and that include mixed materials, are understood to be processed by bulk recycling. During bulk recycling, items are shredded; the resulting material mix is separated by magnetic and eddy current separation. The software assumes that ferrous and non-ferrous metals can be readily separated from the shredded-materials mix, while other materials cannot. Some stainless steels, although ferrous-based, are non-magnetic and consequently are designated “non-ferrous.” Manufacturers can easily add their own preferred DFE materials to the DFMA database, or just to the specific project analysis they have underway in the software. Who is the primary user of the DFMA-plus-DFE analysis and why? The new DFE capability has been developed for easy use by the design engineer at his or her work station. No life-cycle data is currently generated by the software, so an LCA expert is not required at this level. Some input on the recyclability of various materials may be needed, depending on the specialization of the manufacturer. The goal is to allow product development teams to make quick, basic decisions about environmental impact issues early in the process of defining products. This approach recognizes the challenges design engineers face integrating numerous product requirements, and it promotes the creation of “greener” products. What does Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc. bring to the field of DFE analysis? Boothroyd Dewhurst has been in the Design for Environment (DFE) business for 15 years. Its development team has worked extensively with major manufacturers and researchers toward a fuller understanding of the role that product design and manufacturing can play in reducing negative environmental impacts. DFE is not a start-up effort for the company. Depending on the readiness of the market to implement meaningful environmental programs, Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc. will consider launching software upgrades based on its years of research in product disassembly methods and cost and end-of-life analysis. The company’s particular expertise is in bringing environmental knowledge into the product design process very early, starting at the conceptual stage with raw shapes and continuing through the feature-building, advanced-costing stages of product design. This is what currently distinguishes DFMA 2009 from CAD/CAE/PLM product design tools that offer environmental compliance checks of Bill-of-Materials (BOM), or help create environmentally friendlier designs by targeting weight and material optimization. Such efforts generally take place after CAD models are extensively detailed. Likewise, proprietary internal LCA expert programs at leading manufacturers are often deployed as add-on requirements for the designer, usually after work on a BOM has already begun. Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc. feels that both environmental and product cost decisions need to be made together as early as the conceptual design stage. For more information about DFMA, please click here. |
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