WMU Magazine
Green manufacturing answer to environmental and energy concerns
At Western Michigan University, renewable resources and green manufacturing have emerged as major areas of focus for the Manufacturing Research Center.
For five years, Dr. John Patten has played a three-part role as director of the research center, chair of WMU’s Department of Manufacturing Engineering, and a visionary for green manufacturing in Michigan. A lifetime advocate for renewable and alternative energy, his arrival at WMU neatly coincided with an event that triggered an awakening to the need for change. He arrived shortly before a massive power outage in August 2003 that affected much of the Northeast United States.
“Green manufacturing brings the environment, energy and waste together under one umbrella,” explains Patten. “Because WMU has a tradition of working with industry, that’s exactly what I began to do when I arrived here in 2003.”
Patten met with 30 industrial companies to tell them about Western’s Manufacturing Research Center. And, without fail, green manufacturing resonated with them.
“Doors swung open,” recalls Patten, “in large part, because of that August 2003 electrical transmission malfunction on the grid that led to a blackout that covered a large portion of the Northeast United States, including large areas of Michigan.”
The blackout of 2003 was a massive power outage affecting eight states. It left nearly 40 million people in the United States without power, and the financial losses were staggering.
“That was a pivotal moment,” says Patten. “With the electric grid—the energy supply domain—exposed as antiquated, I found it easy to get an audience and letters of support.”
Besides impeccable timing, Patten also brought to WMU years of experience as head of the Manufacturing Engineering Technology program at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and his experience as a resident of Japan, where environmental issues figured prominently into the cultural consciousness.
To understand “green manufacturing,” however, Patten says the average consumer needs to understand and appreciate the design process as it takes place in the modern manufacturing and engineering disciplines.
Green manufacturing starts with the design process and an assessment as to whether each step in the process meets the “green” standards. The assessment starts with the materials. Are they biodegradable, renewable and recyclable?
Second, as the design process evolves, engineers look at the product to assess if it is functional, cost effective, and if, at the end of the product’s life, is it easy to disassemble and reuse.
Third, in green manufacturing, the question asked is this: is the product manufactured in an environmentally benign and energy conscious way?
For the average consumer, the application of the green design process is most commonly experienced through recycling and energy conservation programs. Many consumers participate in recycling programs and building initiatives that save on energy costs, reduce waste byproducts, and recycle products at the end of their functional life. Consumers also may choose to purchase alternative energy through their energy supplier.
For example, Consumers Energy offers its customers the option to participate in a Green Generation Program in which they may opt to pay more to have the energy to their homes or businesses supplied by renewable sources of energy.
What energized the design and manufacturing industries to engineer products in environmentally benign ways may well date back to the very events that personally impacted John Patten and got him started down the green manufacturing road: Earth Day in the 1960s and the oil embargo in 1973. From these events precision engineering emerged and industry faced some fundamental issues: environmental compliance, energy conservation and waste management.
Patten also brought to WMU a strong research record and history with grants. Upon his arrival in Kalamazoo, he started an Industrial University Cooperative Research Center, for which he has been seeking National Science Foundation support.
His most current work involves focusing on renewable resources as the link between energy conservation and environmental preservation. He also is at work on other research that impacts manufacturing processes. (See story on page 11 about Patten’s Micro Laser Assisted Machining, an invention funded by a Michigan Universities Commercialization Initiative grant.)
“Let’s be environmentally benign and energy conscious and design products and processes for the 21st century,” says Patten. “Energy and environment are mutually inclusive.”
Toward that end, he says, the focus must be on reducing energy consumption and using whatever we have more efficiently, even as we continue efforts to reduce pollutants and waste. This is where renewable energy—what some refer to as alternative energy—becomes the hot ticket item in manufacturing industry as a tool to reduce pollutants and waste. Certainly, the subtext for green manufacturing is this idea of exploring renewable resources.
Committed to an alternative and renewable energy initiative, WMU has joined forces with Michigan State University, Wayne State University, University of Michigan and Michigan Technological University. The five are partnering as Michigan’s research universities to establish a Consortium for Advanced Manufacturing of Alternative and Renewable Energy Technologies. Being educators of the next generation of researchers, these five partners are changing the face of the future.
“We now have a generation educated about green manufacturing,” says Patten. “Instead of a line in the textbook mentioning green manufacturing as a factor to consider in assessing environmental impact of design manufacturing, we have entire books and conferences dedicated to the topic.”
Illustrating the potential of alternative energy, a 45-foot wind turbine now graces the Parkview campus near the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences building. Installed in July and dedicated formally in September 2007, the turbine produces 2 kilowatts of power, providing a fraction of the electrical power WMU needs daily, but enough to power a typical home in the Kalamazoo area.
“Wind generates no waste,” says Patten. “It is clean. It is considered a green energy source. It is environmentally friendly as it generates no pollution.”
Active in fundraising, Patten is committed to securing the resources that will lead to having more turbines and bigger structures installed at WMU. And he is committed to educating others on the value of wind as a renewable, alternative source of energy. Leading by doing, Patten sees a shift in the way Michigan uses renewable sources of energy. He will continue to lead the charge as he serves on six statewide committees and advises numerous organizations and companies about the future of wind turbines, particularly in Michigan.
“Given the dual nature of green manufacturing with its environmental and energy components, it is here to stay,” he predicts. “We will see more and more options for the average consumer to join in the efforts of energy companies to increase their reliance on renewable energy.”