As several actions are undertaken to move towards a complete sustainable environment, we gradually learn that there are methods other than LCA that can be used to help manufacturers measure data. Software company CASTOR has developed a CO2 Emission Calculator tool that would help manufacturers reduce their CO2 emissions.
Short reminder: from the very beginning, CASTOR has focused its core business on developing software solutions that would enable part identification for AM – using a set of geometric and economic analyses. Over the years, the company has improved its solutions; with this new tool, it enables industrials to automatically identify 3D printable parts’ designs with environmental benefits, and calculate the potential emissions savings.
With this new calculator, CASTOR positions itself as one of the forward-thinking software companies that go beyond what companies usually do during the design of the part. Remember? In our Formnext coverage, before mentioning the fact that Siemens unveiled a similar tool to enable organizations to measure, simulate, reduce and track their product carbon footprint early in the development phase, I was saying that the “DfAM” principle is often usually mentioned as the only enabler leveraged by software companies to demonstrate they can play their part in this sustainability journey.
The calculation behind the CO2 analysis of CASTOR takes into account various parameters along the full lifecycle of the product.
While there is a great chance that many parts won’t be able to be taken into account in this newly created process, the importance of CO2 measurement might create a paradigm shift for those industrials starting their AM journey as there would be a great temptation to produce AM parts that will be directly optimized for CO2 reduction. Moving forward, given the climate emergency, others will have no choice but to follow the move.
In today’s marketplace, there’s a clear need to measure the “sustainability of 3D Printing”, and consider all of the metrics that play into its place in the global supply chain. While manufacturers look to innovate their existing processes, they need powerful analysis software packages to help them automatically calculate for CO2 emissions, cost per part, material costs, and other elements that play into Additive Manufacturing, in order to make smarter decisions that align with their sustainability goals, CASTOR said on its website.
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