Laura Griffiths chats to Eryn Devola, Head of Sustainability at Siemens Digital Industries about digital transformation, sustainability as a business metric, and why connection and visibility across all parts of the design-to-manufacture ecosystem can enable manufacturers to make smarter sustainability decisions.
TCT: What role do you think sustainability has to play in the context of digital transformation?
ED: Sustainability is an important outcome of digital transformation. Today, companies are looking for ways to bring more innovative products to market, faster than the competition, at a competitive price point. In addition, they have to pay attention to their environmental impact. The only way to do that is to be more deliberate in balancing all of these requirements. Becoming a digital enterprise is a key enabler for sustainability.
TCT: How is Siemens supporting that?
ED: Siemens is uniquely positioned to combine the digital and real worlds to help industries drive the outcomes mentioned above. Our Digital Threads enable companies to connect their whole value chain, from design to production, in use and end of life. Comprehensive Digital Twin technologies, including simulation results, production data, material information, supplier carbon footprint data, and product carbon footprint data help executives make smarter and better- informed decisions for sustainability. In addition, Siemens helps businesses drive a circular and continuous design and manufacturing optimisation process based on data from the real and digital world.
TCT: You recently hosted a panel featuring perspectives across automotive, agriculture and space. Given the variety of these industries, was there a key takeaway that could apply to most if not all industries?
ED: Some key takeaways that can be applied to all industries: First, speed is important. Companies need to be able to plan for different scenarios without expelling physical resources. Two, start small, and then scale with the right tools and skillset to capitalise on your investments based on your biggest sustainability needs. Three, and this makes me hopeful – while our challenges around sustainability and the environment are huge, industry has brilliant people tackling them from all different angles and in all different industries.
Siemens
Eryn Devola, Head of Sustainability at Siemens Digital Industries
TCT: You recently shared in a report how nearly 80 percent of a product’s lifetime environmental impact is determined during the design phase. What considerations do manufacturers need to be making and how early do they need to start making them?
ED: Manufacturers and in particular design engineers can no longer put all their focus on traditional drivers of product performance, quality, and cost. Today, many designs still fail to live up to their promise for sustainability because of the design strategy used. Putting sustainability first means designers need to start looking further upstream and downstream of their products.
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The products of tomorrow need to be designed with sustainability in mind from the earliest development stages – designing and building for reuse, using fewer materials or less energy in manufacturing, remanufacturing and recycling, or incorporating carbon- free technologies. Digitalisation and automation are game changers to achieve these goals.
TCT: How can simulation help with determining sustainability impact in those early stages?
ED: One of the biggest advantages of simulation is that it allows people to try more things digitally before building physical prototypes. In the 1980s or 90s, when you were developing products, you had to move to the most probable designs - those that you intuitively thought would work. Simulation gives us freedom to test hundreds or thousands of designs that don't seem intuitive at first but might be really effective in the long term. Being able to test without boundaries is impactful. It brings innovation to life in a more reliable, dependable and sustainable way.
TCT: One solution is to deploy sustainability as an additional business metric. In your experience, how seriously are businesses thinking about sustainability when making key decisions?
ED: For multiple reasons, sustainability is becoming a key factor in making decisions. We call them the carrot and the stick approach. In places like the U.S., with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), there is a lot of funding for sustainability (the “carrots”). Understanding the positive impacts of sustainability can help decision-makers secure funding. The other space, the “sticks”, can be found in places like the EU: the legislation that you're required to comply with. Using rules and regulations to really weigh in as a factor in your decisions is important. In addition, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires companies to not only disclose what they're doing for sustainability, but to also have a strategy and a plan, to understand their impact. For the UK specifically, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Sustainability Disclosure Requirements enforce product – and entity-level sustainability reporting in the U.K. as well as for product naming and marketing. The good news is, more and more companies are looking at sustainability as long-term profitability. They realise if they don't start acting now, they will be left behind.
TCT: More and more companies are carrying out lifecycle analysis to assess environmental impact of parts and products. How important is it to connect all parts in the design-to-manufacture ecosystem to ensure we manufacturers fully understand the impact and where improvements can be made?
ED: I actually held roles in quality management before moving to sustainability. One of the old mantras you often hear is “You can't control what you don't measure”. Being able to control your sustainability impacts first depends on your ability to see and understand the data. Lifecycle impacts depend not only on what happens within the manufacturing facility, but also in the supply chain. Getting and analysing the right data helps you make choices about how to minimise your carbon footprint, reuse material etc. This requires people to work together in ways that they never have before. It requires looking at data holistically and outside of your own manufacturing facility to leverage all that collective intelligence that’s out there. Your ecosystem plays a big role in it, because you need to be able to share information with your partners and supply chain, customers and consumers, to understand the downstream effects and work together on the solutions.
TCT: What would you say is the most overlooked or forgotten factor when it comes to assessing sustainability impact in manufacturing?
ED: Maybe not overlooked, but certainly complex is the concept of circularity. Industry needs to start rethinking their make, take, dispose strategy. While recyclability and remanufacturing are important, extending the life of the products that we already have and making sure that we're driving maximum use out of them is the clearest path to circularity. It requires rethinking business models in a fundamental way.
TCT: How concerned do we need to be about so-called greenwashing in design-to-manufacturing?
ED: Greenwashing can be concerning. Well intended people continue to look at their small piece of the puzzle unless they can understand that full value chain from cradle to next cradle. It's hard to understand exactly what those impacts are and disclose them. We need to continue to be mindful especially when there aren’t universally understood and accepted standards yet. CSRD is aimed at ensuring transparency, and the Green Claims Directive in the EU will give clear criteria on how companies should prove their environmental claims and labels. It’s expected to go into effect in 2024.
TCT: Across the business, Siemens is a major adopter of additive manufacturing (AM) technologies. For example, Siemens Energy is using it in the manufacture of flexible-fuel gas turbines. Is AM viewed as an enabler when it comes to Siemens’ sustainability goals?
ED: AM is one of the big trends we see in manufacturing as it allows creative thinking. Similar to simulation, parameters around how you manufacture a product can be eliminated with 3D printing. For example, what is the best way to lightweight a product? How do I make sure that I'm getting the functionality with the least amount of material? AM allows engineers to rethink design. In our own plants and factories, we have been able to reduce 70% of the overall weight of a part because we discovered it didn’t have to be produced in a conventional machining way. This can only be done with AM technology. It's a huge enabler for sustainability.
