REGISTER NOW! Agenda and Registration

NCMS will host an executive roundtable where leading industry, academia and government experts will share their perspectives on green design and manufacturing.

The highlight of the event will be three dynamic panels addressing key challenges faced by manufacturers integrating sustainability into their products.

Building Sustainability into Product Design
Product designers are becoming more and more conscious of the impact of material selection, sourcing, design and manufacturing as it applies to end-of-life regulation in Europe and Japan. A panel will review how global companies use sustainable design to comply with regional requirements, maintain social acceptance in the market and address remanufacturing as a viable method for achieving sustainability goals.

Materials and Coatings Sustainability Challenges
Issues such as forestry, mining of metals and rare earths and sourcing of components can negatively implicate products if the sources are not carefully selected. A panel will discuss the methods they use to understand the life cycle impact of their material selections and challenges they face in developing internal sustainability standards in order to achieve global compliance.

Knowing your Customers’ Sustainability Needs
Knowing what the end customer wants and expects regarding sustainability is critical to all manufacturers, regardless of where they fall in the food chain. Representatives from industry and government (Federal, State, and Department of Defense) will address sustainability from the customer perspective.

Setting up these powerful panel discussions will be insightful keynote presentations from Dr. David Cole, Chairman Emeritus, Center for Automotive Research and Chairman and Co-founder of AutoHarvest and John Viera, Executive Director, Sustainability, Ford Motor Company.