Appliance Design - September 2007 - (Page 76) SOFTWARE A Strategy for Materials Program helps designers optimize selection process. by stephen warde Stephen Warde is head of marketing operations at Granta Design, Cambridge, U.K. hen managers, engineers, and materials experts from leading international manufacturing organizations meet at the Materials Strategy Forum in Detroit this month, they will be pondering what clothes washers have in common with aerospace engines, why heating and cooling units are like medical devices, and the similarity between automobiles and power tools. The answer is actually simple. Like all other manufactured goods and appliances, these products are made from materials. And the engineering, economic, and environmental behavior of those materials has a profound impact on product performance and on the profitability, customer satisfaction, and liability exposure of the manufacturer. The Detroit meeting is the third in a series discussing strategies to maximize return and minimize risk in the use of materials — particularly where, as in the examples above, a product employs many different grades and types of material. The Materials Strategy Forum is a collab- W orative project coordinated by Granta Design, a materials software company founded by two Cambridge University professors in the mid1990s. Forum attendees are dealing with a wide range of business drivers and externalities. Volatile costs are one example, as demonstrated by the recent surge in the price of nickel, which affects the cost of stainless steel. The global “design anywhere, make anywhere” manufacturing concept is another example. How does one guarantee that a material sourced in one company matches a specification defined elsewhere? In addition, an emerging wave of environmental, health, and safety regulations further complicates materials choices. Granta’s Arthur Fairfull, director of the Materials Strategy Forum, explains what links such problems for Forum members: “A common thread that unites diverse industries and applications is information about materials, and its role in the definition and implementation of materials strategies.” 76 applianceDESIGN September 2007 www.applianceDESIGN.com http://www.appliancedesign.com
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