Design and sustainability Building a better business with the digital twin and sustainable product design

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Product design is one of the most powerful levers for more sustainable manufacturing. The digital twin makes a significant contribution to this. Eryn Devola, Vice President of Sustainability at Siemens Digital Industries, explains how this works in this article.

Design has always been a balancing act of performance, cost and quality. Today we have to consider a new factor: Sustainability.  Starting with the extraction of materials, through the production of individual parts to the assembly of the end product, its use and the end of its life cycle: all the environmental impacts of the individual product life phases add up and must be understood as a holistic footprint. We know that around 80 percent of a product's environmental footprint is determined in its design phase. The power to influence the footprint to a large extent therefore lies in the hands of the product designers.  Their decisions in the context of materials, the structural design, the production and assembly processes used, the resource efficiency achieved in use and the facilitation of repair, reuse and recycling determine the environmental impact of the products. Every design decision therefore has an impact on sustainability. But how do we shape this positively?  Product design departments are faced with the challenge of creating the optimal design among a multitude of interdependent and conflicting requirements. The most effective strategy to overcome this challenge is to establish sustainability as a new business metric and place it at the center of decision making. Digital solutions then translate the sustainability strategy into sustainable products.

Start with the design of 'systems of systems'

An intelligent design approach focuses on building a logical structure of the product that maps the dependencies of the design requirements. This design approach is known as a 'system of systems'. 
A system can be as specific as a feature of the integrated circuit in an electronic device or as broad as the environment in which the product is used. Most modern products cannot be described as a stand-alone system, as many engineering disciplines are required to develop them. Instead, these products are viewed as a system of systems. Coordinating the various disciplines working on a project requires early and often iterative simulation to optimize the individual systems and their interaction.

This robust simulation is primarily enabled by the comprehensive digital twin of the product. In the case of a ship's propeller, an increase in the blade angle can improve efficiency, but whether the performance and CO2 emissions meet the design requirements depends on the engine and all intervening systems. Thanks to digital solutions, companies can achieve these types of multidisciplinary and highly complex optimizations much faster and with minimized resource expenditure today. 
The combination of simulation and multidisciplinary optimization allows product design professionals to intelligently create a future-proof, profitable, and sustainable design in line with the company's strategy. For instance, a particular material may be preferred over another due to its physical properties to meet the product's performance indicators. Another material might be chosen for its high recyclability. The shape of a part is optimized for weight and manufacturing waste using a specific manufacturing process, such as 3D printing.

Staying on course in a connected industrial ecosystem

To make the right sustainability decisions in the design phase, access to a highly accurate and comprehensive data collection is necessary. This enables the creation of a truly comprehensive digital twin, encompassing the entire network of suppliers, logistical processes, and energy infrastructure. This is also referred to as collective intelligence. As such a digital twin draws data from simulation, manufacturing, and the value chain, it becomes an increasingly accurate representation of the real world. 
The communication ecosystem must cover the entire value chain and be established early on to coordinate actions and data exchange with suppliers, dealers, and other partners. This way, designers have direct access to procurement information about materials and commissioned subsystems.   
Simultaneously, a robust Product-Lifecycle-Management system built on digitization integrates all designers, taking into account the company's available resources. Connecting and integrating these traditionally isolated processes helps bring a better and more sustainable product to market faster.

A well-connected ecosystem for industrial design enables optimization cycles between design and the value chain. In the initial design iterations, designers may have created a product using a specific aluminum alloy, but the supplier discovers a slightly different alloy with comparable properties and better printability within the existing infrastructure. Whether the business decision is to change the alloy or engage a different manufacturing supplier capable of reliably printing in the original alloy, this new data point is added to collective intelligence for future iterations. 
Supplier decisions can significantly impact the sustainability of a product. One supplier might be able to use electricity from renewable sources because it is located near wind, solar, or other sustainable energy sources. Another supplier might be geographically closer to the rest of the production, limiting emissions caused by transportation and logistics.

To promote the circular economy, collaboration can extend across the entire value chain to the end of a product's lifecycle. A complex challenge, as it involves considering the following points: reducing the use of materials, enabling reuse, repair, refurbishment, and maximizing recyclability. 
The choice of a stronger material increases a product's reusability. However, a stronger component may also require a more energy-intensive manufacturing process. The scope and variability of these decisions are why simulation and optimization, facilitated by digital solutions, are crucial for realizing sustainable design. Simpler decisions can be automated, while complex decisions are expedited with artificial intelligence.

Further optimization of the design using holistic sustainability indicators

Finally, it is crucial to validate and assess decisions at every phase of the product lifecycle. Holistic sustainability indicators must be integrated into the digital twin from the outset, ensuring that sustainability, in conjunction with performance, costs, and quality, transparently contributes to the company's goals at all times. This may require incorporating physical sensors into the design to capture diagnostic and environmental conditions during manufacturing, delivery, and use, as well as the CO2 footprint and material costs. With a larger dataset, it is even possible to include virtual sensors relying on models created in the digital twin. 
Physical sensors feed into the simulation models, providing a better understanding of decisions in the early development phase, while virtual sensors and models interpolate and extrapolate sustainability indicators from complex systems. These indicators enable optimization in a closed loop between design, manufacturing, usage, and the end of the lifecycle.

Sustainable design is conscious design

In sustainable design, it's about conscious decisions based on the collective intelligence of designing, manufacturing, and operating a product throughout the entire value chain. It enables the production of a product with the least possible resource use. 
This requires a system-of-systems approach to create a comprehensive digital twin that accurately reflects all the different disciplines required to manufacture a complex product. It also needs to be built on an industrial design ecosystem that facilitates the flow of crucial real-time data within the company and with external suppliers. Additionally, holistic sustainability indicators must be incorporated to ensure well-informed decision-making. Sustainable products start with a sustainable design that is intelligently thought out.

_{*Eryn Devola is Vice President of Sustainability at Siemens Digital Industries.}