Track: B6. Evaluative Strategies for Sustainability

Background/Objectives

There is a great need to broadly reimagine the manufacturing and recapture processes to correct inefficiencies in the supply chain—particularly material sourcing and end use recycling, which currently create vast amounts of waste. Currently, inefficiencies in the supply chain create massive waste and stifle innovation in manufacturing, and concerns for the environment are well established. Carbon-based fuels and products are detrimental to the land, air, and sea. Single-use products made from toxic materials flood the food and medical supply chains.

As businesses increasingly move toward the single purchasing platform model (for example, Uber and Airbnb), this paper proposes a manufacturing sharing service that matches small- to mid-size manufacturers with production capacity as a solution to ethically sourced products, offering access to last-mile delivery locally on a single purchasing platform. Development of an IoT platform can: 1) provide better coordination of the sourcing and supply of materials: 2) ensure effective provision of eco-friendly and recycled inputs, 3) provide efficient distribution of equipment and manufacturing resources, and 4) shorten the supply chain by centralizing and coordinating last-mile delivery.

Approach/Activities

A central problem facing the future of production is climate change. Whether or not we acknowledge the signs of climate change, our economic decisions and energy usage contribute to extreme weather variations across the planet. We are now living in a hotter, drier, more environmentally volatile world with human and economic consequences.

Such environmental factors necessitate a reimagining of manufacturing and recapture processes. This paper offers a solution, arguing for the benefits of an IoT platform for manufacturing that matches small- to mid-size manufacturers with production capacity as a solution to ethically sourced products, offering access to last-mile delivery locally on a single purchasing platform.

Results/Lessons Learned

Smart innovations for ecological packaging and contract manufacturing have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through bioplastic packaging production and leading design for use in carbon capture and sequestration. Furthermore, it can provide a system that shrinks the supply chain and reduces transport needs. A successful IoT platform would provide a unique data exchange of connected points across a supply chain, gathering information on identities, value transfer, and transfer points. This data could drive proprietary insights into the relationship between suppliers, vendors, and customers. Smart manufacturing provides reusable packaging, which can produce savings over time for both the planet and a company’s logistics expense by reducing carbon emissions, delivery inefficiency, and total cost.

As a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) startup, EcoTech Visions (ETV) is seeking to implement the suggestions of Jonathan Gruber and Simon Johnson as presented in Jump-Starting America.^[1] The research suggests that 102 locations across the Midwest and southeastern United States have been largely ignored since World War II but have a massive repository of resources (namely talent, spaces, and logistic centers) to advance innovations in manufacturing and advanced technology.  EcoTech Visions provides ecological packaging manufactured locally.

Climate action plans for many cities focus on a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 following the Kyoto Protocol.^[2] These plans include reducing waste and pollution, as well as adaptation principles that require engaging the public, engaging businesses, and planning for the future. A specific way to accomplish these goals, decrease pollution, and shorten the supply chain is to reimagine how all consumer products are packaged, which would make sustainable, degradable materials widely available and allow for tracking the distribution of these materials.

Development of an IoT platform can 1) coordinate the sourcing and supply of materials to ensure effective provision of eco-friendly and recycled inputs, 2) distribute manufacturing and equipment resources efficiently, and 3) shorten the supply chain by centralizing and coordinating last-mile delivery. As noted, EcoTech Visions is the first comprehensive model of integrated sourcing, manufacturing, and product delivery in America. The power of connecting logistics with a platform is to drive “smart” manufacturing through a sustainable approach and record real-time decreases in GHG emissions. “We see global warming not as an inevitability but as an invitation to build, innovate, and effect change, a pathway that awakens creativity, compassion, and genius. This is not a liberal agenda, nor is it a conservative one. This is the human agenda.”^[3]