Sandvik Coromant plans to develop its business with a special focus on sustainability.
According to a new report from Jan Edvardsson, a market analyst in business development, five key areas have been identified which could impact on the future of manufacturing:
- Sustainability
- Information and communications technology
- Intelligent manufacturing
- Materials, components and machining methods
- Human competence.
‘The earth’s resources are scarce,’ said Edvardsson. ‘Future manufacturing will have to be resource-neutral eventually. What we call waste today must be seen as raw material tomorrow.’
The objective is to create a ‘circular economy’, he said, which means ‘a minimum use of materials, energy and water in production, and also that all products should be designed to be easily disassembled, recycled and returned to the production system’.
For Sandvik Coromant, sustainability encompasses more than recycling inserts and regrinding drills, Edvardsson said. In future, sustainability must be part of the company culture and a natural part of the entire value chain.
High-strength alloys Materials that are lighter, stronger and more sustainable but that are often challenging to machine, such as new high-strength metal alloys, composites and hybrids of both, are called for to meet environmental concerns. Sandvik Coromant plans to monitor new material trends, new material developments and research initiatives to develop new tools and machining methods.
The company is also investigating additive manufacturing methods with the Sandvik Group in its new research and development center in Sandviken, Sweden.
‘An interesting material for the future is graphene, which earned researchers a Nobel Prize in 2010,’ Edvardsson added. ‘Together with most companies in the manufacturing industry, we have an interesting journey ahead. I consider the digital transformation to be the most challenging part. But we are embracing the new opportunities.’
This story is reprinted from material from Sandvik Coromant with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
