ANNUAL REPORT 2010 - Loughborough University

Background
Modern manufacturing is under everincreasing
pressure to develop solutions for
highly complex tasks. The next generation of
factories will have to be adaptable not only to
the needs of the market but also the growing
requirements for economic and ecological
efficiency. Such a factory will have to take
into consideration social responsibility and
environmental sustainability.
Whilst seeking to reduce landfill, increase
recycling, and produce more sustainable
products across all manufacturing sectors,
there is a clear need for the development
and validation of new industrial models
and strategies. The term commonly used
is Competitive Sustainable Manufacturing
(CSM). CSM has the potential to be the
basis for UK and European industrial
transformation. CSM models and strategies
will have to aim at achieving long term
economic sustainability through the increase
in added value and improved production
capability, responsiveness, and quality as
well as environmental sustainability through
the decrease in consumption of raw materials
and energy.
The group
The Sustainable Manufacturing Research
Group (www.lboro.ac.uk/smart) within the
IMCRC is led by Prof. Shahin Rahimifard.
The group also includes a number of leading
academics whose skills and expertise provide
it with the ability to realise cutting-edge
research in this field. The knowledge of these
individuals covers technologies, processes
and management within the context of
sustainable manufacturing. The group has
an established track record of industrial
collaboration with a number of leading
manufacturing companies and retailers
that include: Jaguar, Rolls-Royce Fuel Cell
Systems, Clarks, Nike, Next plc, and TESCO.
Impact
Less than 3.5% of the 20 billion pairs of
shoes produced world-wide every year are
currently recycled or reused. This creates
a large waste stream of worn or discarded
shoes which are sent to landfill sites for
disposal. A major IMCRC project is looking
at minimising the end-of-life waste in the
footwear industry by: developing a ‘design
for recycling’ approach to footwear products
to facilitate economical recovery of material
content; investigating novel disassembly
and separation processes tailored to a wide
range of materials used in footwear; and
specifying a number of business scenarios
for the realisation of a sustainable footwear
recycling chain. The project, enthusiastically
supported by a group of collaborators which
include leading footwear retailers, has also
initiated wider interest through a Footwear
recycling Action Group established to share
best practices with industry.
Another current project is seeking to reduce
the carbon and ecological footprint of
packaging by investigating the environmental
benefits of reducing the consumption
of non-renewable resources and their
disposal to landfill. This research has
included a comparison of the materials and
manufacturing routes for non-renewable
and renewable polymer products using
lifecycle assessment to quantify the
expected ecological benefits of a change in
renewable products, and the evaluation of
new materials in the design of packaging
to minimise resource use. The project has
received significant industrial interest and has
already provided an evaluation of: the waste
arising from polymer packaging; current and
future sources of packaging waste and endof-life
processing strategies available to deal
with them; current bio-material development
and manufacture; UK legislative framework
regarding disposal polymers made from
renewable and non-renewable sources; and
recommendations for evaluating packaging
materials that will be used for LCA and case
studies.
Future Research Directions
Research by the Sustainable Manufacturing
Group will focus on industry requirements
for “doing more with significantly less
resource” (so called ‘Factor X’ improvement
in resource efficiency), which will be
an integral part of future manufacturing
applications. It is therefore envisaged that
the future manufacturing paradigm will be
oriented towards the optimization and value
creation of products along their whole life
cycle. In a modern global market, there is
an increasing demand towards customised
products, which have a short delivery time
together with the development of innovative
systems of ‘products and services’ which are
capable of fulfilling specific user demands.
Under this service-oriented perspective, the
analysis of the product life cycle, to identify
best potentials for both the new business
opportunities and the reported environmental
benefits related to ‘dematerialisation’ of
manufacturing activities, is crucial for
the development of successful industrial
applications. To effectively face these
challenges, the production processes need
to be analysed and optimised, considering
the total product life cycle. Sustainable
manufacturing must become the accepted
norm for all products. The Sustainable
Manufacturing Research Group is facilitating
this change.
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