1996 Electronics Industry Environmental Roadmap - Civil and ...

Design for Environment: Evolution and Tool Needs
companies use overall environmental indices to guide material selection, part selection, and
process design. In ongoing manufacturing activities, DFE checklists are often integrated into
other concurrent engineering activities, and detailed waste and emission tracking is incorporated
into process materials accounting practices.
In surveying the use of these DFE analysis methods, a common theme that emerged is the need
for information on material and energy use—particularly the usage rates of environmentally
hazardous materials. Although data needs are, to some degree, company dependent, there is value
in gathering and assessing data that will benefit if not the entire electronics industry, certain
sectors within the industry. One such example comes from within EPA’s Environmental
Technology Initiative program, which supports the “Design for the Environment Printed Wiring
Board Project.” This project has released a profile of the PWB industry, a profile of the
processes involved in the manufacturing of printed wiring boards, and an industry survey on
pollution prevention and control. The project is examining selected processes and potential
alternatives and evaluating them based upon environmental impact, human health risk,
performance, and cost. 9
Discussions related to the survey revealed that few organizations have the capacity to track
materials (type and volume) through their own manufacturing systems, and even fewer felt
confident in their abilities to obtain information for the DFE process from their suppliers. While
many respondents to the survey felt that customer demands are driving the development of DFE
methods, means of communicating DFE achievements to customers were generally ad hoc.
Thus, one major obstacle to the continued development of DFE is the standardization of material
tracking and energy-use data. Standardized methods for tracking material and energy use will
facilitate the development of generic DFE computer-aided design tools. Standardization will
also facilitate communication between customers and suppliers and would lend a higher profile
to DFE activities. Currently, few companies appear to have moved beyond the use of checklists
and other semi-quantitative analyses. The lack of data needed to perform more quantitative DFE
analyses is a major roadblock to further integration.
4.5 Closing Comments
The survey results and interviews show that many companies in the electronics industry are at the
stage of defining metrics for DFE—determining what level eco-efficiency is desired within the
particular company—rather than fully implementing the process and utilizing complex software
tools. Given the state of incorporating DFE principles in various organizations, as revealed by
this exercise, perhaps the most useful DFE tools are precisely those most commonly in use:
checklists, conceptual guides, and relatively simple chemical and materials databases. Although
some companies need or want to create particular guidelines for specific products, some more
general documents are increasingly available. For example, the American Plastics Council has
published a design guide that discusses such DFE- and recycling-related topics as material
selection, use of recycled plastic, basic part-design concepts, fastening and joining, coatings and
finishes, material identification and marking, and plastics processing, among others [22].
9 Printed Wiring Board Industry and Use Cluster Profile, #EPA 744-R-95-005; Printed Wiring Board Pollution
Prevention and Control: Analysis of Survey Results, #EPA 744-R-95-006; Federal Environmental Regulations
Affecting the Electronics Industry, #EPA 744-B-95-001. #EPA 744-B-95-001 is not a direct result of the
Printed Wiring Board Project, but an updated version of a previously published document.
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