![[skip navigation]](/images/1pixw.gif)
INDO-U.S. SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FORUM
Privacy Policy / Security Notice / Accessibility Statement
NIST is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce
Technical inquiries: webmaster@cme.nist.gov
Date created: 03/02/2009
Last updated: 08/13/2009
Participants List
1. Steve Ray
Title of talk: A MEASUREMENT AND STANDARDS ROADMAP FOR SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING
Abstract: This paper underscores the need for an information and metrology infrastructure to support sustainable manufacturing. Such an infrastructure is needed to enable a scientific grounding for designing sustainable approaches and for defining and enforcing regulations related to sustainability. A number of concrete actions are identified in the categories of metrics and metrology, domain models, testing and validation, standards and best practices, and accreditations.
Bio: Dr. Steven Ray is a Distinguished Research Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University Silicon Valley, where he researches information interoperability and standards in application domains including the smart electrical grid, electronic business, supply chains, and manufacturing. He has a twenty-seven year track record of initiating and leading technical R&D projects at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in
Mobile phone number listed below will not be operational when in
Steven R. Ray, Ph.D.
Distinguished Research Fellow
Building 23 (MS 23-11)
Email: steve.r.ray@sv.cmu.edu
Phone: (650) 587-3780
Cell: (202) 316-6481
2. Subhas Sikdar
Title of the Talk (Key Note): Industrial Sustainability and How to Measure It
ABSTRACT: Developers and operators of industrial technologies, mostly large multi-national corporations such as Dow, DuPont, 3M, BASF, BP, for several years now, have been attempting to provide measures that express their corporate commitment to the concept of sustainability and how they plan to contribute to sustainable development (SD). For measuring corporate SD performance, they make use of metrics that fall into economic, environmental, or societal categories. Individual metrics in each of these categories are thought to capture only one of the three dimensions of sustainability. Many of these corporations acknowledge, however, that the three dimensions of sustainability are connected with one another: an action in one-category changes factors in others. Nevertheless, these metrics are used to conform to the so-called triple bottom line characterization of sustainable development. This talk presents a metrics classification that incorporates these interconnections among measurable metrics, and a method of analysis that depends on identifying the metrics with their dimensionality, prioritizing them according to their extent of sensitivity to overall impacts, and finally aggregating them in a single indicator. This aggregate indicator can be conveniently used for comparative analyses for sustainability.
Bio: Dr. Subhas K. Sikdar is the Associate Director for Science for the National Risk Management Research Laboratory. Before joining EPA in 1990, Dr. Sikdar held managerial positions at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and
Cell phone: 513-708-6966
3. I.S. Jawahir
Title of the Talk: Towards a Systems Approach for Developing Sustainable Products from Sustainable Manufacturing
Abstract: This paper presents an overview of recent trends in developing sustainable products, processes and systems covering multiple product life-cycles with near-perpetual, closed-loop material flow, with minimal new resource extraction and landfill disposal. The paper emphasizes the innovation-based 6R (reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, redesign, remanufacture) methodology for improved product performance models, predictive process models and optimization techniques for manufacturing processes, and sustainable supply chain management techniques. Case studies include a sustainability scoring method for product design, and predictive models and optimization techniques for sustainable manufacturing processes, focusing on dry, near-dry and cryogenic machining. The paper concludes with some future research directions.
Bio: Dr. I.S. Jawahir is a Professor and James F. Hardymon Endowed Chair in Manufacturing Systems at the
Mobile Number:
4. David Ervin
Title: The Economics of Sustainable Business: Theory and Evidence
Abstract: Growing markets for ‘green’ products and services and the prospect of tighter regulations, including carbon emissions, have elevated environmental management to a strategic level for many firms. This confluence of market and government forces has prompted an increasing number of companies to explore the design of sustainable products, services and manufacturing systems. Mirroring these trends, research on the economics of sustainable business has expanded over the past decade. Investigations have identified eight potential motivations for businesses to improve their environmental performance: (i) reduce waste and improve productivity; (ii) serve emerging green markets; (iii) mitigate or preempt government environmental programs; (iv) control financial and other risks; (v) achieve positive stakeholder relations; (vi) manage competitors; (vii) access public or private assistance, and (viii) meet manager’s personal values on environmental stewardship. Each factor, except the last, can be analyzed within a profit maximization framework. The influence of managers’ personal values about the environment requires a utility maximization approach. Diverse studies have tested the strength of the different motivations. Syntheses of the findings suggest that a small set of influences consistently exert significant effects, including regulatory intensity, firm size, investor pressures and firm R&D capacity. A recent test of the utility maximization approach for six industries in the state of
David E. Ervin, Professor and Fellow
Department of Economics, Department of Environmental Management,
and Center for Sustainable
Bio: David Ervin is a Professor of Economics, Professor of Environmental Management, and Fellow in the Center for Sustainable Processes and Practices at
Mobile number: 503.241.1438
5. Vijay Srinivasan
Title: On practicing and enabling sustainability in product lifecycle management: An interplay between engineering and business issues
Abstract: Successful implementation of product lifecycle management depends on addressing both business and engineering issues. This remains true as we bring sustainability practices and enabling tools to support the entire lifecycle of products. Over the past two years, reputed business and engineering professional organizations (such as the Economist Intelligence Unit, Harvard Business Review, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers) have conducted detailed surveys to assess the status of sustainability in industry. This paper reviews these survey results, analyzes their agreements and differences, and proposes how we could address the concerns expressed by the business executives and working engineers using an integrated sustainability framework. Starting with technology development, some of the sustainability issues in various phases of a product’s lifecycle are outlined to provide a glimpse for such a structured framework to develop and disseminate better practices and enabling tools and processes.
Bio: Dr. Srinivasan comes to NIST from IBM, where he was most recently Chief Standards and Solutions Officer for Product Lifecycle Management (PLM); and Program Manager for PLM Research, Standards, and Academic Programs at IBM. Before that, he was a line manager in IBM’s
Mobile Number:
6. Cliff Davidson
Title: Preparing the Next Generation of Design Engineers:The Emerging Discipline of Sustainable Engineering
Abstract: Engineers of the 21st century face challenges that previous generations of engineers have never witnessed: how to design the implements of civilization in a world of finite resources as the population grows to seven billion and beyond. These resources include not only our air, water, land, fossil fuels, and elements buried in the earth’s crust, but also the capacity of our environment to absorb the wastes of human activity. Current graduating engineers are, in general, not prepared to account for these severe constraints in their design space. To better educate our future engineers, several changes are underway in the
Bio: Cliff Davidson received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from
Mobile Number: 412-567-5714.
7. Karthik Ramani
Title of talk: Integration of Sustainability into Early Product Design
Abstract: It is critical that engineers take a paradigm shift of product design i.e. from cost and performance centered to balance of economic, environmental, and societal consideration. Although there have been quite a few design for environment (DfE, or ecodesign) tools developed, so far these tools have only achieved limited industrial penetration: they are either too qualitative/subjective to be used by designers with limited experiences, or too quantitative, costly and time consuming and thus cannot be used during the design process specially during the early design stage. This talk will provide an overview of the state of research as described in the workshop paper. It will further illustrate a novel, semi-quantitative ecodesign tool that targets specially on early design process. The new tool is a combination of environmental life cycle assessment, working knowledge model, and visual tools such as QFD, functional-component matrix, and Pugh chart. The details of the new research will be published in the International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference in October, 2009 (
Bio: Karthik Ramani is a Professor in the
Mobile number:
8. Sudarsan Rachuri
Title: UNDERSTANDING SUSTAINABILITY OF PRODUCTS
Abstract: Sustainability is generally expressed in terms of Triple Bottom Line (TBL) - people, planet, and profit. Simply put, products that are sustainable have positive effects and value for all the stakeholders. In this work, we propose different measures to assess sustainability of manufactured products with respect to TBL. Sustainable Manufacturing is a systems approach for the creation and distribution of innovative products and services that minimizes resources (inputs such as materials, energy, water, and land), eliminates toxic substances, and produces zero waste that in effect reduces carbon (including carbon equivalent) intensity across the entire lifecycle of products and services. The proposed measures should help designers to assess sustainability of design alternatives during the initial phase of design and point out ways to reduce the impact.
Bio: Sudarsan Rachuri’s work in the NIST Manufacturing Systems Integration Division includes development of information models for product lifecycle management, assembly models and system level tolerancing, and interoperability standards development. He coordinates research projects with industry and academia. He is the regional editor (
Mobile number: 94490 40303
9. Kathi Futornick
Title of the talk: Improving Environmental Performance in Sustainable Lean Manufacturing
Abstract: Lean manufacturing is one component of a much larger interactive and interrelated global business system. Lean manufacturing processes have historically focused on eliminating waste, preventing pollution, improving productivity, increasing flexibility and changing operational approaches through continual improvement activities. Although operational processes and outcomes improve with the application of lean processes, the approach focuses on a specific problem, within a specific process and within local control. The purpose of this presentation is twofold: (a) to briefly describe a framework for a global business model in which lean manufacturing, six sigma and other common lean manufacturing methods are integrated into a whole, and (b) describe specific outcomes from an environmental audit of one element within the global model, the supply chain.
Bio: Kathi Futornick is the Sustainability Group Leader for URS’ Corporation,
Mobile Phone Number: 503-407-2231
10. Minna Lanz
Title of the talk: Generic Reference Architecture for digital, virtual and real representations of manufacturing systems
Abstract: Manufacturing companies are facing the challenging dilemma on how to achieve better quality products while reducing manufacturing costs and define the processes as environmentally benign. This is a challenge at the time when consumers are not willing to pay more. One of the ways this challenge can be met is to build better information structure and knowledge base that will support product development environment catering to multiple stakeholders with conflicting set of goals. This paper aims to outline a need for a common information architecture for saving and utilizing more realistic manufacturing parameters as a basis for improved product design and enhanced, cost efficient and sustainable manufacturing. It concentrates on the knowledge representation for combining product, process, and system knowledge into structural shareable reference architecture. The knowledge model’s feasibility is tested in a holonic manufacturing environment.
Bio: Minna Lanz has been working as project manager and research scientist in Department of Production Engineering in Tampere University of Technology under the professorship of Reijo Tuokko, head of the department, since 2004. The topics of the national and international research projects have been focusing on the development of shareable feature-based product; product, process and system models integration knowledge exchange for simulation and manufacturing design purposes. Currently she is working as a guest researcher in Manufacturing System Integration Division in NIST.
11: Ram D Sriram
Title: Sustainable and Lifecycle Information-based Manufacturing (SLIM)
Abstract: As green thinking enters the economic mainstream,
Bio: Ram D. Sriram is currently leading the Design and Process group in the Manufacturing Systems Integration Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where he conducts research on standards for interoperability of computer-aided design systems. He also spends a part of his time in the Information Technology Laboratory working on bioinformatics and health care informatics issues. Prior to joining NIST, he was on the engineering faculty (1986-1994) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was instrumental in setting up the Intelligent Engineering Systems Laboratory. Sriram has co-authored or authored over 200 papers, books, and reports in computer-aided engineering, including several books. Sriram is a fellow of the ASME, a senior member of the IEEE, a lifetime member of the ACM, and a member of the AAAS.
12. Prabir Sarkar
Title: UNDERSTANDING SUSTAINABILITY OF PRODUCTS
Abstract: Sustainability is generally expressed in terms of Triple Bottom Line (TBL) - people, planet, and profit. Simply put, products that are sustainable have positive effects and value for all the stakeholders. In this work, we propose different measures to assess sustainability of manufactured products with respect to TBL. Sustainable Manufacturing is a systems approach for the creation and distribution of innovative products and services that minimizes resources (inputs such as materials, energy, water, and land), eliminates toxic substances, and produces zero waste that in effect reduces carbon (including carbon equivalent) intensity across the entire lifecycle of products and services. The proposed measures should help designers to assess sustainability of design alternatives during the initial phase of design and point out ways to reduce the impact.
Bio: Prabir Sarkar did his PhD from Indian Institute of Science,