1996 Electronics Industry Environmental Roadmap - Civil and ...

Emerging Technologies
112
management, and other topics, could provide useful data that would establish industry
expectation of best practices.
The IPC roadmap devotes a specific section to benchmarking, noting that “…associationled
efforts to develop benchmarking programs for the industry is needed…” [36]. The
IPC report specifically focuses on financial, employee management, product, and quality
benchmarks. Again, environmental benchmarks would be an important addition to the
list.
Workforce Training and Education: Education and training is recognized as a pervasive
requirement throughout the various roadmaps. IPC notes the importance of training in
CAD/CAM and design for manufacturing—a list to which design for environment could
easily be added. The importance of teaching factory-integration principles, education and
specification and standards, training in new information technology tools (such as the
Internet) and a focused effort to understand the impact of manufacturing design on environmental
safety and health are also cited by the IPC [36].
While the SIA roadmap does not address education and training in as much detail, several
places throughout the roadmap note the importance of improved training, particularly the
factory integration discussion [31].
The NEMI roadmap addresses the issue most directly, including it as one of the key infrastructure
policy issues. There, the Roadmap notes the importance of electronic technology
training throughout the educational system including specialized grant programs
and special partnerships. NEMI also notes the importance of manufacturing training at
post-secondary education and IPC recognizes the importance of enhanced efforts to raise
attendance in trade and engineering schools [33, 36].
It is vital that a well-integrated element of the engineering curriculum be a consideration
of the environmental implications of engineering design, product development, and
manufacturing processes. Approaches for waste minimization and pollution prevention,
recycling and recapture, and a variety of other design for environment and environmental
management issues are critical to future educational programs.
6.4 Grand Challenges for Environmental Excellence
The system improvements described above will contribute significantly to improved
environmental management in the electronics industry. However, certain challenges are
ambitious enough that they should be established as “Grand Challenges“ for collaborative
industry research and development—a set of enduring issues that can provide a fertile base for
focused research and development. By doing so, evolution can be accelerated and revolution can
be facilitated.
The Electronics Manufacturing Technology Roadmaps published by NEMI call for the establishment
of a clean electronics initiative, similar to the clean car initiative established to deal with
emissions issues in the automobile industry. Such an action could make a significantly positive
contribution by establishing a national focus on environmental processes in electronics
manufacturing for government, industry, and academia. Once established, such an initiative