Introduction

At the beginning of the industrialization the prime focus of the study and engineering
was to find the ways, means and methods to get maximum production output. Taking
example of industrial revolution in England the major focus to increase the industrial
production output. Steam engines were a major contributor to this industrial growth.
The major source of energy at that time was coal and which was found in abundance
at that time. To fuel the growth of industry more and more coal was excavated and in
some cases imported to England. Without thinking aboutits impact on the
environment.This leads to very high levels of pollution creating a health hazard.
There were acid rains and smog allover England.

No doubt industrialization does wonders in the human history. It brought

mechanization to the industry, the industries like Iron, Textile, Gas making,
transportation & agriculture shows tremendous growth during the industrial
revolution. But all this was achieved by putting Environment at stake.

With the increasing Pollution and reducing natural resources various new parameters
or indicators were devised. New concepts of environmental impact such as Carbon
footprint, air pollution, greenhouse gas emission, water contamination were
developed. They were used as a benchmark to know the environmental impact of
any activity. Now polluting the environment was considered an important factor while
designing any process. The impact on the environment was studied in detail and the
manufacturing process were developed around this. Still one problem remains and
that was the ever limiting resources.
By studding the environmental impact and making it as low as possible we can
reduce pollution but still some pollution will remain. With ever increasing demands in
terms of goods and energy this small impact also accumulates to a big value. In other
words with all this we can achieve only so much but still we need to find out ways and
means to ensure our existence as the natural resources keeps on depleting.
So, it is necessary to device way to reduce the environmental impact not only by
reducing the pollution but also by deigning the product which require less energy and
natural resources to manufacture, to transport, to use and most importantly to
recycle. Hence, the concept of Sustainability was developed.

Sustainability can be dined as

"Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability
of future generations to meet their own needs." Bruntland Report for the World
Commission on Environment and Development (1992)

The concept of sustainabilty can be applied to each and every activity that we can
thinl of weather it is designing, deveoping, manufacturing, transportation, storage, or
any other activity it can be related to industry or even simple things like deciding how
much toothpast is required while brushing. In this report we would be presenting the
study done on sustainablilty in manufacturing and design.

Terminologies related to the Sustainability.

Environmental impact
It can be defined as the change or effect that one activity produces on the
surrounding environment. The impact can be understood by listing down the
disturbances produced by certain activity. The impact can be good or bad i.e.
Installation of wind turbines can greatly affect the bat or the bird population in that
area, so the installation can be said to have an environmental impact of reducing the
bird population in the surrounding area.
In manufacturing scenario we consider the possible impact on the environment at
each and every stage of the product lifecycle. This can be broadly classified into the
following categories.
1. Material impact: this is the impact which the raw material used to make the
product produces on the environment. Taking an example of a fertilizer
manufacturing company. They used various chemicals to produce synthetic
fertilizers now in certain cases the raw material leaks in to the environment
may be due to mishandling or due to the very nature of the chemical. This has
a big impact on the environment near the manufacturing unit.

2. Manufacturing impact: This the impact which is produced by the manufacturing

unit in term of the pollution or the scrap produced.

3. Transportation impact: When the product is manufactured it has to be

transported to the customer or when a sub assembly / raw material is
produced it has to be transported to the next assembly / manufacturing plant.
This also causes a major impact on the environment. In today’s world the
globalization product are manufactured in one part of the globe and consumed
in another part of the world, sometimes products are shipped across the
continents through ships this have a major impact on the marine life near the
ports and the seaways.

4. Impact while using the product: The impact due to the use of the product is
mostly underestimated in the industry but if studies carefully it impacts the
environment near the end customer. It can be said that to produce a car we
produce some quantity of CO2 but when the product (car) is used it consumes
a lot of fossil fuel and produces the green house gasses and may be in some
cases more than that were initially produced and estimated at the time of
manufacturing the car. So it is very important to understand the environmental
impact which a product produces when it is in use.

5. End of life impact: This is impact which the product produces when it has
completed its usage or workable life. Once the product has completed its
workable life or is damaged during the use it needs to be scraped. Now all the
scrap which is produced by scraping the product creates a negative impact on
the environment. Taking example of the modern-day electronic scrap such as
mobile phones, laptops and other electronic products, they are not
biodegradable and have to be scraped or recycled with great care.

In general the environmental impact is studied in terms of the pollutants it spreads in

the surrounding air, water and the energy consumption. The basic parameters to
measure the environmental impact are

1. Carbon Footprint: It is the amount of all the greenhouse gases produced by

the activity. The greenhouse gases includes the emission of carbon dioxide,
 carbon monoxide, methane etc. the total emission is converted to the
equivalent CO2 units for easy comparison. This is mostly due to burning of the
fossil fuel such as coal, diesel etc.

2. Energy consumption: This is the total energy consumed to perform certain

activity. It is measured in mega joule (MJ). It includes the energy required for
all the heating, cooling, lighting, etc. The energy is produced either by burning
the fuel or is drawn from some external energy source such as power grids.
When the energy id drawn from some external source it directly measured in
terms of the joules and in case it is generated by burning fuel etc the energy is
estimated by knowing the total volume of the fuel used and the calorific value
of the fuel.

3. Air acidification: This the amount of acids or fumes other than the green house
gases which is emitted into the atmosphere. It includes chemicals like sulfuric
acid, hydrochloric acids, etc. This chemical can pollute the air and the water
resources in the near vicinity of the production unit. This impact is measured in
terms of Kg of sulfur dioxide equivalent.

4. Water Eutrophication: It is the impact which is measured by the Kg of

phosphate equivalent or in some cases Kg Nitrogen equivalent of the nutrients
which are dissolved in the waste water coming out of the plant. Nutrients are
important part of the water ecosystem but when there produced in abundance
(mostly as a byproduct of some other activity) they produce and effect called
“Eutrophication” this catalyses the growth of algae and other plant life in the
water ecosystem there by reducing the amount of oxygen in the water leading
to the death of aquatic life.

Use of software to calculate the environmental impact and using it to create or design
a more efficient product which will have lesser impact on the environment and will
have better sustainability.

In our study we have used the Soildworks simulation sustainability express module to
develop models and estimate the environmental impact.

Solidworks: It is a parametric solid modeling computer aided design software tool

owned by “Dassault Systemes” it was first released in December 1993. There are
several version and the modules available and we have used the 2016 premium
version of the software.