Part 1: The increased viability of sustainability

Sustainability and manufacturing need not be mutually exclusive. As detailed in this three-part series, industry is putting unprecedented effort into ESG initiatives.

By Lisa Eitel | Executive editor

In recent years, businesses with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives have put increased emphasis on sustainability. Especially in manufacturing and automated operations, metrics abound to allow analysis and third-party verification of which efforts have the most impact. Industry experts surveyed by Design World cited five sustainability-effort arenas showing the most significant impacts:

• Technologies to boost energy efficiency and reduce carbon footprints
• Approaches to maximize material use and minimize waste
• Industrial conservation and recycling initiatives
• Programs to boost overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)
• Supply-chain adjustments to reduce transport costs.

Here’s what those surveyed experts had to say.

MEET THE EXPERTS
Anant Bhat | Director — Industrial strategy and portfolio management • Schaeffler Americas
Brad Dineley | VP of operations and strategy • Schaeffler Americas
Brian Burke | Product manager III • Bishop-Wisecarver Corp.
Brian Dengel | General manager • KHK USA Inc.
Chris Caldwell | Product manager – material handling • Yaskawa Motoman
David Mayers | Sales director • IDS Imaging Development Systems Inc.
Francois Minec | Global head of polymers • HP Personalization and 3D Printing
Gian Sachdev | Marketing head – Americas demand generation • Cognex
Josh Leath | Senior product manager — thermal • Yaskawa Motoman
Lane Persky | Chief marketing officer • Rotor Clip
Linda Weber | Global sustainability engagement manager • Jabil
Michael White | Vice President of regional business units and engineering • Schaeffler Americas
Mike Korkowski | Operations manager • LinMot USA
Ori Yudilevich | CTO • MaterialsZone
Patrick Varley | Product marketing manager — robotics • Mitsubishi Electric Automation Inc.
Ramon Guitart | VP of engineering — electric motors • Infinitum
Richard Halstead | President • Empire Magnetics Inc.
Robert Cachro | Program manager — growth and innovation • Dynapar
Robert Luchars | Executive VP • ECM PCB Stator Technology
Stacy Mendez | Director of ESG and global strategic planning • Avnet
Yugi Ikeuchi | GM — Engineering and app development • IKO International

Have recent years brought more effective sustainability programs?

Minec: Today’s climate demands a more responsible approach to business, starting with manufacturing. From increasingly stringent global regulations to pressure from consumers for more eco-conscious options, manufacturers are pursuing sustainability like never before.

Designing products with environmental impact in mind from the very start is where the biggest gains are made. Product design is the most authentic and effective step we can take towards more sustainable manufacturing, as it’s directly correlated to the amount of waste we produce — and the way we structure operations and production lines to create efficiencies. Fortunately, advancements in 3D printing technology are making this easier and more attainable for even more manufacturers across industry verticals.

The growing use of automation is further infusing sustainable practices throughout the production line for minimizing the environmental impact of mass manufacturing while increasing application output. By acting as a tool to meet both sustainability and production goals, 3D printing along with transformative automation are enabling digital solutions for manufacturing and a more sustainable and innovative future.

Image: Cognex

Weber: I do see efforts to increase efficiency and reduce waste in manufacturing across the industry. Specifically at Jabil, we conducted a stakeholder engagement study in 2021 to better understand the social and environmental challenges our employees, end users, suppliers, and other stakeholders care about the most and rank them by level of importance in terms of their relationship to Jabil. We then used the outcomes to create our five-year ESG strategy.

Our comprehensive strategy aligns our sustainability ambitions with those of our end users, many of whom are globally recognized brands. This collaborative arrangement allows for broader sustainability efforts. Additionally, it creates new paths for responsible economic growth, value creation, and long-term business resilience.

For each goal, we set measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) and monitor their progress using data-driven dashboards. One of our stated goals is to reduce waste in our operations and increase the number of our global sites that are Zero Waste to Landfill certified. To earn that certification, a site must achieve a 90% or greater landfill diversion rate for at least a year. In fiscal year 2023, five more Jabil sites achieved this status; we aim to raise that number to 20% of our sites by the end of fiscal year 2026.

We emphasize transparency and sharing our sustainability best practices, tools, and resources among our own global sites and with our end users and suppliers. Therefore, we work with a third-party assurance provider to validate our ESG data and share those results in our sustainability report.

Luchars: We’re working with several of the world’s largest HVAC manufacturers and consumer electronics companies under non-disclosure agreements. These firms are using our technologies in heating and cooling systems and commercial devices with more sustainable performance characteristics to comply with regional MEPS mandates. We believe our technologies will positively disrupt an overlooked yet increasingly ubiquitous space that hasn’t seen transformative innovation in eons. They serve as an intersecting solution between a critical market need — designing billions of specialized electric motors annually — and an environmental challenge — reducing excess global energy consumption caused by conventional electric machines.

Have international mandates affected sustainability efforts?

Persky: The European Market seems to be driving the sustainability conversation, and American companies often scramble to find ways to meet their requirements. At Rotor Clip, we’re fortunate that we can at a minimum provide localized production to our end users, reducing sipping and logistic requirements and thus making us a more suitable sustainability partner. We also do our best to manufacture sustainably — reducing and recycling scrap at every opportunity and using green energy as well as water treatment and recovery in production while minimizing packaging as much as possible. At the end of the day, we’re a manufacturer — and require raw materials, electricity, and natural resources. So, we do the best we can to stay competitive while staying environmentally minded.

Sunvapor’s thermal battery installed at Oberon Fuels

Luchars: In 2019, the European Parliament passed Ecodesign legislation that mandates electric motor minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) projected to erase 40 million tons of CO₂ emissions annually through 110 TWh of energy savings. The latter is equivalent to the Netherlands’ yearly electricity consumption. In context, by simply mandating more efficient motors, the EU can save as much energy as its seventh largest economy uses annually. But how do we sustainably satisfy a world projected to demand more than a billion specialized electric motors annually?

ECM believes the answer is extending our PCB Stator technology and design software as SaaS. To scale the benefits of our PCB Stator design technology, we launched the PrintStator Motor CAD platform as a public SaaS product in 2024. With PCB Stator science, PrintStator lets engineers create custom electric motors. For example, the platform might let one consumer-electronics manufacturer design and procure a 1.26-kW washing machine motor delivering 94% efficiency, conforming to an exact form factor, and complying with regional MEP requirements.

Yudilevich: As a software platform, sustainability metrics are not a selling point for MaterialsZone to win new end users. However, the platform may impact end users’ process of winning new projects. Our end users must often report sustainability-related metrics to clients, governments, and regulatory agencies, and our technology lets them document and monitor sustainability-related metrics. That way, they can more easily prepare reports to be filed with regulatory bodies and clients — and predict metrics before production.

Detail how your technologies support sustainability initiatives.

Sachdev: Millions of products are made each day with the help of Cognex vision solutions, and our products help end users detect manufacturing errors early … thereby reducing scrap materials that would otherwise end up in landfills. Using Cognex vision solutions can also help lower companies’ use of energy, water, and raw materials … and greenhouse gas emissions.

We see a lot of interest in better inspection that’s driven by the desire to reduce waste — to lower scrap rates or more accurately fill containers, for example. That’s a good example of where sustainability and business interests overlap, as less waste means cost savings for the manufacturer and an improved environmental footprint. The detailed information a vision-based inspection system captures can be used to find the root causes of wastage, wherever they occur along a production line.

Mayers: IDS feels responsible for keeping its ecological footprint as small as possible. This is reflected in our business activities — for example, in providing durable climate-compensated camera models as well as resource-conscious production and logistics. As an integral part of many automation solutions, industrial cameras also open new ways for users to conserve resources.

Varley: In all the industries we support (including food and beverage, automotive, and consumer electronics) we’re seeing more emphasis on environmental and sustainability goals addressed by robots.

Robots from Mitsubishi Electric Automation are extremely durable, so eliminate the use of resources to build their replacements, plus avoid the need for premature disposal. The robots’ high precision reduces incorrectly built and scrapped products. Finally, they robots are built for 24/7 operation so manufacturers can increase their output through better utilization of existing resources instead of purchasing more equipment or building new facilities.

Ikeuchi: IKO C-Lube technology was developed to provide long-lasting operation with improved efficiency. C-Lube subcomponents are built into an array of linear guides and cam followers; they utilize a capillary action to significantly reduce lubrication requirements. Usually frictional resistance remains low, as internal geometry ensures there’s no contact on opposing bearing components such as track rails. The result is reduced environmental impact.

Yudilevich: We help reduce manufacturing waste by giving R&D personnel a better understanding of the impact of the materials they use to develop products.

When R&D teams look to design a product, they often overlook the ability of manufacturers to produce these products in large quantities … and sometimes pick materials that create a lot of unnecessary waste. With materials-informatics platforms, R&D teams can access information to make informed decisions to reduce waste created in product-manufacturing processes.

A ∅220-mm stator of the HVH220 eMotor includes BorgWarner high-voltage hairpin winding technology to help deliver up to 300 kW of power and 18,000 rpm. A permanent-magnet rotor and stator insulation enhancements help the motor maintain efficiencies to 97% and high reliability.

Cachro: There’s a noticeable trend towards embracing more efficient technologies that reduce waste. Dynapar’s HS35iQ support of a steel-finishing mill exemplifies this trend. This mill implemented encoder-specific fault detection to trim troubleshooting time from two hours to 10 minutes per occurrence. This resulted in a 92% decrease in encoder related downtime and approximately $137,000 in annual savings. These achievements highlight that the most substantial sustainability gains are likely to be found in process optimization and the integration of advanced technology. Adopting such strategies is crucial for minimizing resource waste and enhancing operational efficiency, serving as a sustainable model for diverse manufacturing sectors.

Korkowski: Our electric linear actuators are replacing conventional pneumatic cylinders in applications to reduce waste (for a 97% reduction in CO₂ emissions) and boost efficiency for energy savings to 95%. Plus, motors allow 35% faster machine speeds. In short, LinMot technologies are green solutions for automation.

Guitart: We’re seeing high demand for Infinitum’s efficient motor technology for HVAC fans, pumps, data-center cooling, and material-handling applications. Continuing to innovate upon our Aircore PCB-based stator technology, we’ve increased our power density and boosted efficiency and sustainability, Now, our latest generation of Infinitum’s integrated motor-VFD system is 20% lighter than the previous version and offers upwards of 92% efficiency. TO save energy, an integrated VFD controls the motor speed to precisely match the actual power demand of an application.

Infinitum motors systems can also be tailored to fit application-specific power, torque, and input current requirements. This is more economical and sustainable for end users who previously had to use off-the-shelf, less efficient, and standard motor sizes.

What about the intersection of sustainability and supply-chain management?

B. Burke: There seems to be more demand for transparent product information both up and down the supply chain with automation project owners asking for certifications and proof of compliance with new standards. There’s also a push for more environmentally sustainable solutions such as biocompatible lubricants that don’t require California Prop. 65 labeling.

Guitart: Most conventional motors are thrown into landfills at their end of life. Our motors use fewer raw materials and have an easily serviced, repaired, remanufactured, and recycled modular design to keep the motors in service and out of landfills. When hundreds or thousands of motors are used in a building, data center, or industrial facility, reducing the energy demand and waste created by motors can make an enormous impact.

Bhat: Our end users’ interest in sustainable products and packaging has significantly grown in recent years, and sustainability performance can certainly be a factor when awarding new business. For Schaeffler, sustainability goes beyond providing sustainable products to our end users. As part of the Schaeffler Group’s sustainability target to achieve climate-neutral operations by 2040, the company will include its entire supply chain on this climate journey with green purchasing, green production, and green products. In fact, as detailed in the 2022 Schaeffler Sustainability Report, Schaeffler generated 4.9% of its annual revenue from green products in 2022.

Mendez: Key is a multifaceted approach to reduce the impact of packaging used when shipping products. This begins with leveraging recycled packaging materials wherever possible, optimizing vendor partnerships to prioritize those that provide eco-friendly packing materials, and focusing initially on void fill and product protection options. Other examples of initiatives that reduce the impact of packing waste include:

• Transitioning to single-wall corrugate from double-wall corrugate where possible.
• Consolidating customer orders in warehouses.
• Reusing shipping pallets.

We’ve noticed an increase in customer requests about Avnet’s sustainability performance and reporting participation. This is happening with companies we already engage with, but we also see responsible business-related questions in the screening processes for request for proposals (RFPs).