Ramac founders S?ren Andersen and Jimmy Rose analyzed their packaging machine design part-by-part with SolidWorks SustainabilityXpress software to find material choices and manufacturing methods that decreased the machine’s environmental impact throughout its life cycle. SolidWorks SustainabilityXpress is an integrated part of SolidWorks 2010 CAD software, which is Ramac’s design platform. The software helped Andersen and Rose weigh every environmental factor in producing the RAMAC 525 Workstation, which is a semi-automatic machine that forms and seals blister packs for consumer and medical products in low to medium quantities. The SolidWorks SustanabilityXpress intuitive dashboard details a design’s expected carbon footprint, air and water impact, and energy consumption. It rolls up the probable environmental impact of an entire designed product across its life cycle.

“It’s amazing how easy it is to find out if an alternative solution is better or worse than your original design, from an environmental point of view,” Andersen said. “It took us just a few minutes to find out that if we manufactured a special component in plastic in Denmark, instead of aluminum in Malaysia, as we first planned, we can spare the Earth 600 kg CO2 every year. Every variable analyzed with SustainabilityXpress indicated that plastic would be more environmentally friendly than aluminum and strong enough to support the load required.”

In addition to the material and manufacturing changes, SolidWorks SustainabilityXpress prompted Ramac to exchange a pneumatic cylinder for an electrical one that consumed less energy. The software documented every environmental gain Ramac made by choosing alternative materials and production methods. That’s important for convincing customers they are buying more environmental friendly equipment, Andersen said.

“Many companies today claim they are green, but to be credible you must be able to prove you are,” Andersen said. “The documentation functions in SustainabilityXpress are very clear and easy to understand. We have decided to deliver the environmental analysis document along with every green packaging machine we sell to prove we don’t just talk about sustainability, but really have integrated environmental principles into our business.”

Encouraged by its success in creating a greener machine, Ramac plans to analyze all future versions of the packaging machine with SolidWorks SustainaibilityXpress right from the beginning of the design process.

“Sustainability and carbon footprint have become frequently used words by companies and media all over the world. They’re nice words that indicate a growing concern for our planet, but up until now it has been very hard to document that concern in day-to-day actions,” said Simon Booker, European marketing manager of Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp. “We developed SolidWorks SustainabilityXpress to give companies who care about sustainability metrics, like Ramac, the tools they need to design more environmentally sound products. It’s powerful, easy to use, and makes a difference for every company that wants to be considered green.”