Going on a resource diet

Or, less is more.

In a posting on February 17th of this year I was building an argument to try to place products in a space defined by the use vs make consumption or impact. This would allow us to consider products to consume that require both fewer resources to produce as well as fewer to consumer. And I argued that such products were closer to sustainable than others. Except for including it in the figure showing the contribution to lifetime impact in that posting,  I did leave out the "post consumer" phase in the discussion. That should be an important consideration also.

We could add that easily. If you are a good visual thinker, you could imagine a third axis on the graph I showed in the February 17th posting representing End of Life Consumption or Impact. Then, by extension of the argument, products would fall into a "high" or "low" end of life impact based on whether they were essentially fully recyclable (or the materials were fully recovered, and extra points for avoiding downcycling) or not, respectively.

Again, living in the lower left quadrant (or cubic space if a three dimensional plot) is most desirable. Recall the Ricoh Comet circle diagram introduced early on in this blog (see the posting of September 21, 2009). In the circle, the forward (counterclockwise loop) is from materials manufacture through parts manufacture, product manufacturing, through sales to delivery and use. The reverse (clockwise loop at the bottom) is after the consumer is done with the product back through recycling, recovery, and return to material supply chain.

So, relative to the Comet circle, the "top half" is the manufacturing phase and the "bottom half" is the use phase. And, the shortest loops of the circle the extend from the consumer and back to the consumer are the most sustainable in the use phase.

So, what about the material diet?

In a follow-on posting to the use vs make chart and discussion I gave an example of Ditto hangers, made from post consumer recycled paper and cardboard fiber, as a product in the lower left hand corner of the chart. I don't know all the details about resources used to produce the hangers but I'm finding out.

The re-use of material reduces our appetite for new materials and, essentially, amortizes the initial environmental cost and impact of the first production of the material.

An article in the Christian Science Monitor on March 15th discusses Pepsi's  plan to move to totally "plant based PET" bottle for packaging their beverage instead of the current oil-based plastic. They plan to start introducing this in 2012 in some markets and it could eventually result in "a switch of billions of bottles sold each year. Of Pepsi's 19 biggest brands, those that generate more than $1 billion in revenue, 11 are beverage brands that use PET." According to the article the bottle will be made from "switch grass, pine bark, corn husks and other materials. Ultimately, Pepsi plans to also use orange peels, oat hulls, potato scraps and other leftovers from its food business. One unique feature is that the input to the material is waste from other uses and not plant bio-matter grown specially for this purpose.

Again, as with the hangers, we'll need to see how much energy and resources go into converting the salad listed above into the bottle and, there is no mention of whether or not this particular bottle will be classified as compostable or recyclable.

Another candidate for the lower left corner?!

Now for something completely different (and apologies to Monty Python for borrowing the phrase!) but on the same subject.  My friend at Cambridge University, Julian Allwood, just sent me the most recent white paper published from a project titled "WellMet 2050" which is, according to the website "investigating novel methods of meeting global carbon emissions targets for steel and aluminium that go beyond improving process efficiency by reconsidering the entire product lifecycle." This recent white paper is titled "Going on a metal diet" (and is available to download).

"Going on a metal diet" discusses means "to use less liquid metal to deliver the same services in order to save energy and carbon." I have referred to Professor Allwood's research on this in past postings. He has pointed out in several publications that just trying to recycle metals more efficiently (or more completely) will never allow us to reach the goals of energy and carbon reduction proposed by many governmental agencies and organizations.

In this latest white paper from WellMet, they report on two key strategies for reducing our intake of liquid metal: "designing products that use less metal and improving the ‘yield ratio’ of metals manufacturing." In this research they used five detailed case studies to examine metal intensive product design. These included: universal beams in construction, food cans, car bodies, reinforcing bars and deep sea oil and gas pipeline.  All real products and large consumers of metal.

The research report states that "in each case, we found we could deliver the same final service with less metal, by pursuing one of four strategies: avoiding over-specification; selecting the best materials; optimising whole products; optimising individual components."

This is the recipe for eating well while on a diet - ala metals. Let's look closer:
- avoid overeating (that is use the correct size, thickness, strength of metal needed - not more; this usually relies on quality control to insure materials meet specifications; we've discussed this before. Recall the example of tightened tolerances on aerospace components saving weight?)
- choose the right food to eat (or, selecting the right materials; use analysis to get the right ratio of strength to weight, or stiffness to weight, etc. Using software like Granta designs material selection software can help.
- consider the whole meal and its overall balance of ingredients (or, optimizing whole product or system of production; we've covered this a lot in the past - thinking of the entire product life cycle)
- read the label on each food item in your meal and choose carefully (or optimize the individual components; recall the "Google earth" view of manufacturing? And we talked there about technology wedges to aid in this optimization. We identified a number of levels that can be analyzed or optimized and improvements can be applied to).

It all makes sense to me. This strategy can be applied to a broad range of materials - not just metals. These can act as the criteria for the creating the technology wedges that we propose to move our products and systems in the green direction.

Happy dieting!

Learning from big events

Or avoiding an "environmental tsunami"

As I am writing this posting the world is watching the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Most concerning is the situation developing around some of the nuclear power centers in Japan where the potential of a disaster of  Chernobylian proportions is a real possibility.

Without trying to assess "who did or did not do what and what they should or should not have anticipated," situations like this humble us (specially engineers and scientists) as to our abilities to "do the right thing" when designing and implementing technological solutions to aid society (and run our businesses).

My wife, with a solid letters and arts education from a top school (and hence a member of that great mass of folks who can pose questions that make  make engineers look down at their shoes and mutter "ohh…uumm…well") often observes these events and makes a very perceptive comment. When an "even" occurs that is based on a situation that was never expected to occur, engineering experts are interviewed about this and the first response is "wow, we never expected that to happen."  She points to the Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco bay area in 1989 and the collapse of a portion of the bay bridge. This was exactly what the experts said. This is a true statement but, to many folks, an unsettling response. We should be able to do better. And next time the designs are improved of course.

But, there always seem to be more things that are not anticipated.

The world is full of "things we don't expect to happen." The Japanese earthquake was apparently a once in a millennium event with little or no evidence in history of a prior occurrence. One geologist interviewed on NPR said that we might have to look further back to anticipate potential large earthquakes in the future - for example, in California.

So, this makes us think (more) about a range of future concerns.

A faculty member in the Goldman School of Public Policy here at UC-Berkeley, David Kirp, has just published a book titled "Kids First: Five Big Ideas for Transforming Children's Lives and America's Future"  (see Amazon). Although this book deals with education and not nuclear energy or sustainability, one of the author's comments on page xiii of the preface of the book (which was also quoted on NPR the other morning) rang true to me for a much broader discussion on sustainability and green manufacturing.

Professor Kirp wrote, relative to educational systems,  "the aim is to make widely available what all parents want for their children, to treat every youngster as well as we'd want our own children to be treated. That's the golden rule, and it's sound ethics, whatever your ideology. What's more, it's good for kids and a solid investment for the rest of us." Last time I checked, the golden rule concept is part of most major religious beliefs.

Doesn't this sum up our discussions on sustainability perfectly? Let's do for everyone else what we'd like to see those we love the most experience. Start with children and work our way up the humanity ladder - next to parents, then extended families, then neighbors, and villages, and countries, regions, etc.

I started this blog some time ago asking the question "why green manufacturing?" And I was very careful to indicate all the reasons this is a good idea for both "believers" and "non-believers" alike - meaning those convinced global warming is a fact or a real threat and those not sure about it or certain it is all hype. And one of the reasons for greening was to reduce risk. That includes natural risks. Does your supply chain pass near to Sendai?

But now we look at Japan.

No one saw this coming. And no one can tell for sure (meaning 100% certainty) if there is global warming or if it is caused by man made activity or just a periodic fluctuation in the earth's climate.

Do we really want to take that chance with our children, or, more likely grand and great-grand children? How do you do the cost-benefit analysis on that?

In the November 17th 2010 posting I referred to a discussion on a smart phone app that would send out hypothetical "text messages from the future." The example message then referred to a need to wear respirators due to past build up of CO2 emissions.

A more current message from the future might read "Please make sure not to build backup power generators for nuclear power stations in low areas.  Mind the tsunami!"

We owe ourselves a more proactive view of the future, and how to insure it is unspoiled for our descendants. It starts with individual commitments, like green manufacturing and sustainable production, whatever your beliefs. And these commitments and the actions arising from them influence our associates, then our companies, then our country and our world.

Let's not get hit by an unexpected "environmental tsunami" which we could have had an effect on - by designing, producing and reusing products more sustainably

In the next posting we'll continue on this path of looking for more technology wedges, and ways to assess their impact, for enabling green manufacturing.

Moving to the lower left corner

Achieving sustainable consumption and manufacturing

In the last posting we were discussing the "space" that manufacturing and use impacts occupy depending upon the product. I presented a graphic that outlined four areas of that space - from low manufacturing and use impact (lower left corner) to high impacts for both (upper right corner). The lower left corner was the location of products that could be considered more sustainable both from the production and use aspects. Hence the title of this posting.

The other two "high-low" quadrants then represented products where we need either to increase the efficiency of the product (with respect to design or using manufacturing leveraging) or we need to improve the efficiency of the manufacturing process relative to use and manufacturing phases, respectively.

So the obvious question is - what kind of product typifies the "low-low" quadrant?

One great example is hangers!

OK, I know some of you will snort that this is a typical academic example and does not relate to "real products" - like automobiles, toaster ovens or laptops, etc. I accept the criticism. But wait until you hear the argument (and see the example I've in mind) before totally disregarding this argument.

First, the set up.

Is there any more annoying "consumer product" than the wire hanger? They are absolutely necessary for keeping clothing stored and orderly (either in the store or in your closet or, it turns out, in shipping garments to the store) but hard to get rid of  responsibly. They tangle easily, and recyclers hate them or have severe restrictions on their recycling since they are not easy to process, they are hard to store and transport and are usually coated with something.

Most say the best way to deal with hangers is to reuse them. What do you do with old hangers? They accumulate faster than you can use them!

I looked on line for help. According to the Montegomery County MD waste services,  for wire hangers, they suggest (and the parenthetical comments are my observations!):

"Reuse- The best "disposal" method for wire hangers is reuse! Check with your local dry cleaners to see whether they accept wire hangers -- many do! (if you look behind the laundry at the end of the day you may see them in the trash; that's what I observed;  it is a customer service but it is not recycling)

Recycling - Curbside blue bin program; Sorry, we do not accept wire hangers in our curbside blue bin program

Curbside scrap metal collection program- If you have a scrap metal collection scheduled for large metal items, you may add your hangers to the pile. We do not schedule scrap metal collections for hangers alone. (Next time you are throwing away the scrap steel in your backyard…toss the hangers in!)

Solid Waste Processing Facility and Transfer Station; We accept hangers in the scrap metal drop-off. Follow the signs to the Recycling area. (OK, this is better)

Trash- You may put wire hangers into your regular household trash." (but not recycling).

Enter Ditto hangers. They have developed a product for commercial and residential use - the paper hanger! The website says "The Ditto 10-Pack line is smart, hip and stylish, 100% non-toxic and recyclable anywhere! Strong and long lasting, the Ditto Paper Hanger can hold over 20 lbs, strong enough to hold the heaviest leather jacket or winter coat. Made with 100% tree-free recycled paper the Ditto Paper Hangers can fit twice the amount of clothing in the same closet space!" They are designed to replace the wire hangers (see issues with them above) or the polystyrene hangers that you bring home from the store (and that the clothing was shipped to the store in) and then can't recycle.

Now the sustainable part. Besides making the hangers from 100% recycled paper, they have a strategy for easy reuse or recycle of the hangers. Their website shows the traditional life cycle of a hanger (ending up in a landfill - apparently an estimated 8 billion hangers end up in landfills every year - that's 21 million a day!).

Ditto Hangers include a cartoon in their website under the "environment" tab that shows their product in use in a commercial setting with easy customer reuse/recycling.

This is compared to the traditional cycle of clothing shipped from manufacturer on hanger, item removed from shipping hanger and put on display hanger, and both landfilled when the product is sold. In the new system the "product is shipped and displayed on Ditto Hangers. Hangers can go home with customer for further branding power or can be recycled at the store with cardboard boxes." And, since it is cardboard, the customer can recycle it with their normal cardboard recycling.

The impact? Using 1 ton of Ditto hangers vs. polystyrene hangs saves, according to the website, 2,418 lbs of carbon, 17.44 barrels of oil (yes, plastic is made from oil!), and 121,129,281 BTU of energy.

To me, that puts this product squarely in the lower left corner.

But, what about more complex products? A recent Environmental Leader article (March 1, 2011) discusses the efforts of some major manufacturers and retailers in the apparel and footwear business working to inform customers of the environmental impact of their products. Called the "Apparel Index" this is designed to drive improvements in the whole supply chain as well as inform.

The goals include (from the article): improving water-use efficiency and/or re-use in cultivation or production of raw materials (e.g. cotton) and product manufacturing; Minimizing the volume and chemical constituents of water discharges associated with manufacturing; reducing the need for water use in garment care by challenging conventional washing practices and developing alternative approaches; minimizing direct and embedded energy use; creating products that mitigate other carbon impacts in society (such as reducing the need for heating and air conditioning systems); committing to minimizing operational, supply chain and end-of-life waste; developing effective uses for textile waste; and reducing the use of chemicals and potentially hazardous materials which pose health or environmental risks, both in cultivation and manufacturing.

They hope to substantially alter the "business as usual" model and the potential costs, impacts, and damage it can cause.

I don't have any specific examples of products but one of the prime drivers here, Nike, has its Environmental Apparel Design Tool for assisting its designers in making the right choices at the product design stage. And, this will move Nike products in the direction of the lower left corner of the diagram.

We will look at some additional efforts to drive products to the lower left corner including some major initiatives from US government agencies in the future.

And, finally, something you can do to help with the battle to get more understanding of global warming!

This was brought to my attention by one of my lab researchers, Dr. Barbara Linke.  A new study has proved that "Being in a warm room can make the idea of global warming seem more likely." A study done by a Business school professor and published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (described here) showed, among other things, that if people were asked about their impressions of global warming and its impacts when they were in a "heated cubicle", they were more likely to believe in global warming. The article also notes that "In another experiment, the researchers found that participants who were led to experience thirst by eating pretzels were more likely to agree that desertification and drought will increasingly threaten people’s ability to find fresh drinking water." The study comments that the results validate the finding that "people will judge a certain condition of the world as more likely if it fits with what they are experiencing at that moment."

What can I say? Eat your pretzels in a cool room if you want to avoid worrying about global warming!

Green Consumption and Green Manufacturing

Or where does the (green) buck stop?

Recent postings have been discussing the connection between the use phase impact of a product and the manufacturing phase impact and what influences these. This was in the context of both looking at means to reduce consumption (meaning giving the consumer products that deliver the required functionality or service but at a lower environmental impact or energy/resource consumption.)

There are a number of places along the product development chain that critical decisions are made that have a positive or negative influence on this impact. Last time we were talking about whether or not the rule of thumb that 20% of the design influences 80% of the cost of a product also applies to the energy/resource impact. I thought that, in many cases, it didn't work that way.

There is, by the way, a great study on this from 1993 written by some MIT researchers (Karl Ulrich and Scott Pearson) titled "Does product design really determine 80% of manufacturing cost?"  and they tease this comment apart with some case studies and analysis. The report attempts to determine how much product design influences the manufacturing cost of a product. They study this for a class of high-volume, electromechanical consumer products — automatic drip coffee makers - and they find "that for coffee makers, the variation in manufacturing costs attributable to differences in product design is slightly smaller in magnitude than the variation in costs attributable to differences in manufacturing systems, for a specific range of assumed manufacturing system parameters." They note that the "rule of thumb" is specially flawed where the dominant cost contributor is the cost of materials. Further, they note that "There is also a basic logical flaw in the argument that if the minimum possible manufacturing cost is 80% of the maximum possible manufacturing cost then product design is a critical activity of the firm. The flaw arises from the assumption that much of the 80% of the cost of the product is under the control of the product designers."

I was not going to get into that but I agree. But, for now, we are concerned with the influence of design vs manufacturing on the life time product energy or resource impact.

So, back to use vs manufacturing impacts. You might recall this discussion recall blogs ago. We can actually visualize this use vs mfg impact space in terms of what needs to be done depending on where the product sits in that space. In the figure below, we can see four quadrants of "sustainable product" characterization.

The axes are the same as in the use vs manufacturing discussion and indicate, from low to high, the consumption or impact of that phase of the product's life cycle. Then the "low-low" quadrant indicates the most sustainable product. The "high-high" quadrant contains products that are to be avoided or, in another sense, offer the most potential for improvement. The two "high-low" quadrants represent products where we need either to increase the efficiency of the product (with respect to design or using manufacturing leveraging) or we need to improve the efficiency of the manufacturing process relative to use and manufacturing phases, respectively.

This figure does not, however, discuss the relative importance of all the phases of the product life referring back to the earlier discussion about the role of design. I've tried to capture this in the figure below. The figure shows the contribution to lifetime impact or energy/resource use of the various phases of a product, from first concept through design and production to end of life.

First, please note that this is a conceptual drawing (even a cartoon) trying to represent reality. There are lots of examples where this likely does not represent real product performance. And, you might be able to adjust the location of the high and low parts of a particular pattern relative to the phase somewhat as well. But, having said that, we can identify at least four patterns of impact shown in the figure as A. B, C, and D.

Pattern A, in blue, is what I think is a typical impact cycle with the major contributions to impact coming in the manufacturing and use phases. Pattern B, in red,  reflects design decisions that more aggressively affect product impact - things like inefficient use of energy based on design decisions/component selection, materials choice, etc. Pattern C, in yellow, reflects an introduced manufacturing process/system efficiency that reduces the manufacturing contribution but has little impact on the rest of the product performance. This might be due to a more efficient process chain for manufacturing.

Finally, pattern D, in green, represents an example of "leveraging" manufacturing. Here the assumption is that a more capable manufacturing process is introduced in the production plan that may consume more energy or resource in itself but offers product advantages in that it improves the performance of the product over its lifetime. The example given in an earlier posting about improvements in automobile engine efficiency due to aggressive use of precision manufacturing is in this category.

An important point to note is that it is the area under the curve that is the cumulative impact of the product - basically the product of impact x time. Meaning, Pattern D is the best in this example since the area under the line representing that pattern is the smallest of all the examples. The worst case illustrated here, in terms of cumulative impact, is pattern B - poor design decisions.

It is possible to have improved manufacturing offset, somewhat, poor design. Pattern C does that to some extent.

Think about these two figures and the decisions that can be made along the product phase from design through end of life that will have an effect on where the product is located in the use vs manufacturing space. There is a lot of potential for reducing the impact of the product.

And, you can tell from the way I've composed these examples that I come from the manufacturing side of the engineering profession! I don't mean to "dis" my design friends in any way. I just want to make sure we are all aware of the tremendous potential manufacturing offers to address the sustainable consumption challenge.

We will continue to work on these "potentials" more in the future.

Everyone wants a label

More on sustainable consumption

Last time we started to introduce the issues around sustainable consumption - from a manufacturing perspective. I know this sounds a bit strange, consumption from a production viewpoint, but the idea was motivated by the need to reduce the demand for un-necessary products (or, at least, to minimize the waste created by their consumption) and how manufacturing might play a role in this.

In the impact equation (also called IPAT) the demand is driven by population and consumption per unit of population (usually referred to as GDP/capita). It is this piece that, if reduced, would have a big effect on the overall societal impact on the environment - make consumption more sustainable (or, at least, less impactful).

Previously we discussed how manufacturing helps with the Impact/GDP piece of the impact equation - meaning, manufacturing provides the where-with-all to reduce that piece.

It is not a simple task - but ideas are emerging.

A recent International Herald Tribune article (29-30 Jan 2011) had a page of coverage about the World Economic Forum at Davos and talked about wind energy company Vesta and the wind energy association introducing a special label for products made with wind energy. The label is being promoted by a consortium of international organizations and companies interested in promoting the use of clean energy and they've come up with a symbol, consisting of three blue "swooshes" around the word “WindMade,” as their way of promoting products made with clean energy.

Companies are seeing a slow down in the movement towards reducing climate change due to the economic downturn, new political realities and questioning about the urgency. So, some groups and companies are picking up the torch themselves.

The idea is that if the consumer sees that the product was made with renewable energy they are more likely to purchase it - it aligns with their personal commitments to sustainability, etc.

Never mind that in the last posting I quoted the study by Enviromedia about the current 350 different labels that already confuse the consumer.

But this one, wind energy produced, has the potential to take root. The promoters also indicated there could be labels for other sorts of energy sources for producing the product as well, hydro, bio-fuel, solar, compost methane, etc.

The question is, to rephrase the comment from Professor Lanza in the last posting, do we want to encourage people to buy products they don't need with money they don't have to impress people they don't like and that are made with energy that is better used somewhere else (or not at all)!?

This is the quandary … if you have a renewable source of energy should you be able to "waste it" and still claim to be advancing the cause?

Now, certainly, all the products made with renewable energy are not wasteful and un-necessary - not by a long shot. But it is the mentality that is potentially problematic.

So, how about a label for products made with "green manufacturing" technology (hopefully powered by renewable energy)? Why can't we have a label to represent products that are made with the minimum expenditure of resources (materials, water, other consumables), energy and with benign or, better, positive social impact to the folks making the products? And produced on systems that optimize both production efficiency and energy and resource utilization as discussed in the last posting.

I don't have a specific proposed label here. But we could call it "GreenMade" perhaps.

If you have some ideas send me a sketch! I'll include some of the better ideas in the blog in the future! Maybe a factory made of green leaves? Or a smokestack blowing smiley faces? Go for it!

And what about product design? It is often stated that design is 20%  of the product development cycle but fixes 80% of the cost (see, for example, the article by David Anderson for a reasonable summary of this). The implication is that decisions made early in the concept and design phase for a product will dictate features/requirements that will control 80% of the lifetime product cost. The logic then follows then that it is difficult, if not impossible, for manufacturing to reduce costs since "design determines manufacturability" thus locking in costs.

But this does not necessarily translate to fixing 80% of the energy consumption (or other material/resource consumption). Let me explain.

Manufacturing processes differ in terms of their abilities, and efficiencies, to create functional products or components from raw materials. That is, transforming materials from one form to another - the definition of manufacturing - can be done in many ways. Even for the same design.

Further, the energy a product uses may depend a lot, or only minimally, on design decisions. For example, a designer may pick components for use in the product - say an electronic device -that individually consume a lot, or little, energy and together make the product function. That would count for a design driven energy product profile. Choosing correctly at the design phase would reduce product lifecycle impact.

But, there are many situations where this link doesn't work.

Going back to our "leveraging" discussion some postings ago we saw some examples of manufacturing enabling a design (which was not specifically dictating a process chain to produce the component) that had a tremendous effect on reducing the lifetime consumption, and impact, of the product. In that case the example was an automotive engine.

So, I think we can "decouple" design from manufacturing in many cases in term of energy or resource impact over product lifecycle and consider manufacturing an "independent" variable when it comes to determining life time product impact.

How we do that is a subject for additional discussion - let's continue this next time!

Sustainable consumption

I am writing this from a technical meeting in Europe I've been attending on manufacturing where the flames of green manufacturing have been flamed and are burning brightly! A separate session on energy efficiency and resource effectiveness saw a group of presentations ranging from more detailed analysis of energy use patterns in production processes (think machining or heat treatment) to more esoteric issues of process planning with energy utilization in mind.

The process planning discussion was interesting. If you are familiar with process planning you already know the complexity of just trying to make sure all machines are used to the fullest extent. Process planning is, basically, how to order the production steps of a product through a number of machines.  It includes how this is optimized to handle the production of a number of different parts (that is, several different sets of parts moving a number of production stations in a sequence - each set of different parts with a different quantity (called batch size)).

Think of the cartoons of production processes shown before here  - a series of boxes linked by transfer mechanisms to move a workpiece from process (box) to process in a sequence. Now think of how a batch of parts of the same component move through this. The first part starts in the first  box where an operation takes place for a set time. Then the part moves to the second box for a second operation and another similar part starts in the first box. With each "cycle" the parts move from box to box until the first part in the batch exits the final box and it is called a "finished product."  Over time, all the parts in the batch move through the production line and the line "falls silent" as the last part moves through the system.

The "falling silent" part is the issue here.

When the next batch of parts (of a different component requiring different times at each of the boxes due to the operations that are needed) starts the production line, the planner has to allow enough time between batches so that the second batch does not "run into" the batch that precedes it. This occurs when the cycle time of some of the boxes is shorter for the second product than for the first one. That is, for a given process applied to a given part, it may require different times to complete the work on a part based on the requirements of the part. And the requirements will change from batch to batch for the parts in the production line.

Further, in such a production line there is always one process that takes longer than the others (called the "bottleneck"). Then, the time in the other steps following the completion of the tasks in that box while waiting for the bottleneck to complete its work is referred to as idle time. The bottleneck may occur at a different station for each batch of parts.

Still with me?

Now, recall the discussion we had in a previous posting on "green at the process level". This identified machines that used energy pretty much independently of the process that was being performed (referred to as "tare heavy") as opposed to machines that used little energy except when performing productive work ("process heavy"). If the production line described above has a lot of stations waiting for a part to appear in order to operate on the part, and the process in the station is "tare heavy", then a poorly planned production process chain will waste a lot of energy while not doing anything productive. Not a desirable situation.

It turns out that a lot of manufacturing processes fall into this category unfortunately for a variety of reasons we won't go into yet.

So, back to the meeting, if one can include in the process planning the consideration of not only delay times (or idle times) in the sequence of starting batches of products (with varying cycle time requirements) but the energy value of that wasted time (do to the machine energy use even if not processing - which will vary from process/machine to process/machine (or box to box in this example), then one could try to find a sequence of production of several batches of products that would insure both minimum production time (or makespan - the time difference between start and finish of a sequence of jobs) and minimum energy used.

This is an industrial engineer's dream problem (and a nightmare to solve).

But, for an existing production facility, for which the processes are well characterized from the energy perspective, this is a realistic goal. A presentation at the meeting by Professor John Sutherland of Purdue University went into some of the details. We can discuss this more at a later time.

So, what about the consumption title of this posting?

At the meeting, following this (and several other) interesting presentations, a discussion started about how if we could just get people to buy more sustainable products, we could produce less overall, and manufacturing would be reduced (although the value of manufactured products would likely be the same or greater) and this would be a better solution than trying to squeeze wasted energy  (or other resources) out of the manufacturing process.

Or as Professor Gisela Lanza of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology put it to me - we need to encourage people not to buy products they don't need with money they don't have to impress people they don't like!

The assembled engineers quickly agreed that we are not into "social engineering" and that this "behavior change" is better left to experts (rock stars, politicians, marketing consultants, other bloggers, etc.)

But, trying to improve the longevity of products by design and manufacturing is something we can aspire to. And maybe the people will follow.

I am encouraged by the fact that Americans seem to be looking for help to do this. Unfortunately they are not getting much assistance from the market place. A recent article posted by Enviromedia commenting on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) closing its public comment period for its Green Guides states that research that shows 65 percent of Americans would prefer just one seal for green products over the hundreds that are now causing confusion. They note that it is increasingly hard to determine if a product is "truly green" or not based on available information. They are presently overwhelmed with the 350 product certifications that currently exist.

So, the consumer may come around.

In the meantime, there is much to be done to reduce the impact of manufacturing  on the individual process level (and to reduce tare consumption).  This relies on such planning schemes as discussed above. If you have sufficient time between products coming into each box you may actually be able to shut off the process/machine (or essentially put to sleep major components) when the processing is done for that part. Then, if you can restart and warm up the process/machine before the next product appears at that station (box),  to some extent you can "decouple" (a word engineers like to use to mean separate the effect of one thing on the other) the energy optimization problem from the wasted time problem.

And, of course, we can always try to reduce the tare consumption by design of the machine and its control and operation.

We are going to talk more about design and energy efficiency and longevity in the next posting - also motivated by discussions at this meeting.

"Resolution motivators" for the New Year

Thoughts about green New Year's resolutions

With the turn of the calendar announcing a new year I remembered, as a kid, the flurry of activity in my house around the development and pronouncement of New Year's resolutions - those idealized goals for the next year which, if watched but not too closely, made the start of a new year enjoyable.

So I was thinking about this while reviewing a lot of material in preparation for this posting. And, it occurred to me, there are "resolution motivators" that we can use to help each of us craft our resolutions with respect to sustainability and green manufacturing for 2011.

So, here goes.

In no particular order, my top 10 "motivators" are:

1- "You snooze … you loose": The standard phrase employed when someone is not keeping their eye on the ball and gets bested, scooped, left behind or otherwise trumped by someone else. Think large lethargic corporations comfortable in their business practices while their competitors watch the trends and changes and respond resulting in increased profitability, market share and, at least, continuity in business. Reading any of the sources of green technology and business practices shows us that our competitors are not sleeting. Stay competitively awake.

2- Avoid "technical dickies": Definition - when I was in high school there was a "dickie craze." Dickies are faux turtleneck sweater necks (and a bit of shoulder) that you can wear under a shirt to give the appearance that you are wearing a full turtleneck sweater. They are the sweater equivalent to the clip on tie. Whereas they may appear to fool some … they eventually are apparent for what they are (a fake item). Green washing is, to me, the equivalent of a "technical dickie" - something that is not what it appears to be and only fools other "dickie" wearers. Don't green wash. (If you are not familiar with the greenwashing term see the July 10, 2009 posting)

3- "Every one wants to drink milk … but no one wants to milk the cows": This is a saying I got from my old friend Professor Dick DeVor of the University of Illinois. And he got it from his late father-in-law, farmer Herb Luedtke. Country wisdom. We all have to put something in to get something out. That is the reason for the social element of the triple bottom line of sustainability and, frankly, just common decency and good sense. A corollary to this is the familiar "no such thing as a free lunch."

4- The golden rule - "them with the gold makes the rules"; This was a well worn saying of one of my old, now departed, Berkeley colleagues Joe Frisch. It can actually be a positive concept. Consider Walmart (or any other very large corporation with a lot of sway over their suppliers).  Walmart has embarked on a mission to green up their supply chain. Working with the Sustainability Consortium at Arizona State University and the  University of Arkansas they are using their marketing leverage to drive the creation of eco labels for products sold in their stores so consumers can make decisions about what to buy. And they've been proactive about reducing packaging waste. Using your leverage to make things happen.

5- "Why worry about future generations? What have they ever done for us?" Attributed to Groucho Marx. This is the mantra of the "me generation" and has contributed to much of the situation we find ourselves in today. Sustainability, as we have discussed many times, is insuring the future has the same, or better, opportunities that we have. Same opportunities for education, life style, health, freedom, leisure, employment, nourishment and so on. Tall order. But that's what this is all about.

6- "Lead, follow or get out of the way": (and see number 1 above). There is probably nothing more frustrating about someone who is intellectually, or competitively, asleep than if, also, they are blocking your way. I had a friend who used to refer to a mythical "intellectual hat pin" (another relic from the past) that they would employ to poke someone to get someone to start taking some action or, at least, wake up and get out of the way. Leaders have special responsibilities (see numbers 1, 2 and 5 above). Maintaining an open and responsive attitude towards new drivers for reducing impacts in their operations and enterprises is at the top. And then taking action is next.

7- "Live life like a pizza … one slice at a time": I never quite understood this one but it is on a billboard along Interstate 80 outside of Dixon Ca advertising an Italian restaurant. I have other versions of "living life like a pizza" but won't bore you with those. This reminds me of technology wedges. These tech wedges (see September 15, 2009 blog) if this does not ring a bell) are designed to make small, but measurable, reductions in impact or consumption in a process or system. Rather than trying to eat the whole pizza in one bite, take small slices and make measurable, but consistent, progress.

8- "You cut and I pick": This has to be one of every mother's standard instructions in the face of siblings trying to divide like a pie or donut or something else they'd both rather eat all of. One slices and the other then gets first pick of their piece of the pie, or whatever. This insures that the "divider" will do their best to cut the item as close to equal in half as theoretically possible to insure the "chooser" gets a fair shake.  Or, unless the chooser is asleep, the divider loses out. Be fair in your appraisal of any new concept or idea … just as if you were the divider.

9- "This will come in handy if we never use it": This was a phrase often employed by my father, reflecting his depression era "save it" mentality when any item or object came up for disposal but it seemed to have some inherent value or usefulness. He was not a hoarder by any means. But he did know how to get the most out of anything. The "low hanging" (if you will) energy or resources in any factory or facility ripe for saving/reducing/reusing is usually very large indeed. Find it and save it. As Ben Franklin would have said "A kilowatt saved is a kilowatt earned."

And, finally

10- Don't rely on the "magic 8 ball" or similar schemes for your planning.  Read, think, ask, try. There are a lot of resources out there, specially now on the web, put together by folks who spend a lot of time scouring the world looking for innovation, examples, etc. - read them! Some of these sources are listed at the bottom of this page. Google search is an amazing tool. But read, think/analyze, then act.

Thanks for reading along. I hope this provide some stimulation for your resolutions this year.

And, Happy New Year!