Vision

To accommodate population growth and global economic development, sustainability research suggests that we must become at least 10 times more efficient in material resource and energy use over the next 50 years (and achieve associated reductions in wastes such as CO2 emissions). CIRP has seen a number of environment-related contributions in recent years, but such efforts will not produce the magnitude of improvement that is needed. The CWG will explore the manufacturing science, technologies, and paradigms that are needed to support product, process, and system improvements that are needed to achieve a 10-fold improvement in how we use energy and material resources.

Mission

The CWG covers the whole range of CIRP expertise and seeks to promote exchanges, collaborations, and knowledge diffusion directed at identifying the technologies and approaches that industry must adopt to become an order of magnitude more efficient/effective in terms of their material resource/energy use, and produce a concomitant reduction in wastes. CWG operation will include presentations by CIRP members, invited speakers, and industry experts; CWG discussions will be directed at characterizing future impacts on product design, process technologies, and manufacturing systems. The CWG will pursue the development of a roadmap for industry change via two thrusts:

• Establishment of knowledge/data to support product/process design that promotes energy/material resource efficiency and development of design/process technologies that are more effective in utilizing energy/material resources. This will be pursued in close coordination with the CO2PE! initiative that engages participants beyond the CIRP boundaries; and

• Development of innovative product designs, production systems, enterprise operations, and supply chain paradigms that use dramatically reduced levels of energy and material resources (e.g., extensive use of remanufacturing to promote multiple use cycles of products).