What’s New in NX | June 2023 | Sustainability Impact Analysis tool
We’re back with another entry in our derivative content series! We strive to bring you new capabilities with our continuous release cycle of NX. In our latest June 2023 release we brought you new updates and features that really benefit you and allow you to work in a more sustainable way. In this entry we will be looking at the Sustainable Impact Analysis tool and how this can offer you more efficient ways to integrate environmentally conscious design.
The bigger picture
Global concerns around sustainability continue to grow, and no industry is immune from the pressures of adopting a sustainable strategy. You don’t need us to tell you that we are against the clock when it comes to taking action, but thankfully, consumers and companies are responding. More and more companies are producing sustainable products, and many industries are committed to moving to green technology within the next decade. The challenges arise as product designers need to account for these factors much earlier in the design phase. This is where NX’s Sustainability Impact Analysis comes into play.
What is the Sustainable Impact Analysis tool? Sustainable Impact Analysis puts environmental impact assessment at the heart of your product design process, enabling smart decisions based on accurate up-to-date data. The new module allows organizations to calculate, view and evaluate the impact of their design decisions based on a diverse and comprehensive set of environmental impacts.
End-to-end lifecycle
Here at Siemens, we understand the importance of our customers having an end-to-end picture, and provide reassurance that we focus on all the different stages in the product lifecycle. For example, we know there’s a focus on the raw material phase; the decision of which vendor you are going to procure your raw material from. And what’s more, accounting for all the different phases that particular material might have gone through, from its natural form to a useable state. Siemens NX will support your workflow at the various life cycle stages, and will account for different input parameters which can drive your sustainability scores, meaning designers can make informed decisions faster.
The tamper system
This is the part that compresses the coffee once water is added, and then ejects the used coffee when complete. We’ll look specifically at how this can be designed and built in a sustainable way. We’ll then explore the environmental impacts of our design decisions, and how results from these studies will affect the geometry of the tamping system.
Calculating your sustainability score
At this point in the design process, we can begin utilizing tools from the Sustainability Impact Analysis. Under ‘analysis’, we can see where NX provides us with our sustainability score. This is useful for designers to check throughout their modelling to see how different variables can affect the score. For instance, NX looks at the scores for recyclable and renewable materials, to give you comparable scores. The benefit of working on this in NX is that it provides four different reports – CO2 equivalency, primary energy use, freshwater consumption and a toxicity rating.
Changing materials
Let’s say you want to change the material used on your model. NX will update automatically and rerun all the scores to reflect the new material, and how this has impacted your sustainability score. NX can set up a design with needed input parameters that can help you calculate the required sustainability score, as well as guiding designers in choosing the right material. You can also optimize your design to reduce the material utilization and improve the overall sustainability scores.
Visual reporting
We’ve taken a look at tables and reports, but we understand that not everyone interprets data this way. And so we’ve added updated visual reporting capabilities inside HD3D tools. Found under Visual Reporting, a brand-new Sustainability Report graphically highlights the four key sustainability aspects of the components in your product design. Any one of these can be made your current active category and you can cycle though each one to get a more in-depth view of how sustainable your design is. And in conjunction with Teamcenter, it’s easy to get a complete roll up value for each category to help you make informed decisions.
Continue your journey with NX
And that brings our look into the Sustainability Impact Analysis tool to a close. We hope you have found that useful in finding out more about how NX can help you and your company make better, sustainable decisions. Make sure to continue your journey with NX by looking at our content below 👇
Watch the full Sustainability Impact Analysis video here ▶️
Watch the full June 2023 premiere here ▶️
