Three Actions for Sustainable Manufacturing in 2023

By Bhalchandra Chorghade, Editor, CNCTimes.com

A combination of market, social, and regulatory pressures is pushing sustainability to the top of strategic priorities for executives. Discussing sustainability in board meetings is not enough; investors, customers, consumers and regulators are demanding tangible actions and results from these initiatives.

For manufacturers to be sustainable in 2023, they must take actions that drive efficiencies across their value chains while maintaining "eco-friendly" mindsets. Being sustainable in manufacturing elevates the "go green" mantra by incorporating it into every decision across the enterprise in a repeatable manner while continuously optimizing resources and constantly reducing its carbon footprint.

This pushes discrete manufacturers to create more efficient and sustainable products, which require many considerations across their life cycles. The good news is that companies that institute sustainable manufacturing in the increasingly complex product lifecycle will meet these growing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) demands while improving efficiencies, reducing waste, and eliminating costs along the way.

Sustainable manufacturing in 2023 will use principles from the circular economy — a model that eliminates waste by reusing existing materials from decommissioned products for future iterations of new products. Manufacturers embed these "circular" product lifecycles in the early stages of engineering, manufacturing, aftermarket services and the eventual end of life of the product.

Below are three actions for discrete manufacturers to take in 2023 to adopt a circular economy mindset and make products and processes more sustainable across the enterprise.

1. Equip engineering to design for sustainability

The engineering department is a key enabler for more sustainable manufacturing as its decisions have significant ripple effects, including upstream through the sourcing of bio-friendly materials from reputable suppliers and downstream where design decisions impact the product lifecycle through manufacturing and service processes.

2. Achieve energy efficiencies from sustainable manufacturing processes

Manufacturing processes have traditionally been designed to minimize operating costs including space, machines, materials, workers, and power. For global manufacturers with dozens or even hundreds of plants, these annual costs run into the millions of dollars and the carbon footprint is extensive and under increasing scrutiny.

To address these cost- and energy-intensive operations, manufacturers are looking more diligently at their power consumption and evaluating methods for optimizing their current usage, as well as considering renewable energy alternatives. The increased maturity of the industrial internet of things (IIoT) is providing manufacturing executives with novel operational insights from their production lines and connected machines, including comprehensive data on energy usage.

3. Reduce service costs with more sustainable product operations

Historically, once a product was manufactured and shipped to a customer, the information feedback loop ended, as did the opportunity for value-added customer experiences. This has drastically changed as customers demand novel digital experiences, more durable products, and consumption-based usage options. With the help of new technologies the manufacturer can now be involved in the product lifecycle far beyond the factory.

Service initiatives driving these new customer experiences are both a massive revenue-generating opportunity and a significant cost center. Tracking and optimizing sustainability metrics across the service lifecycle can improve both a manufacturer’s top and bottom lines.

Finally, industrial machinery degrades over time. By leveraging data insights, manufacturers and their customers can be more proactive in the decommissioning, disposal and recycling of their products when they reach their end of life, enabling additional sustainability improvements. Being proactive with service also extends the life of the product, reducing the need for the customer to purchase a new one and for the manufacturer to create it.

https://www.ptc.com/en/blogs/corporate/3-actions-for-sustainable-manufacturing-2023

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