Companies come together to find green solutions

In the past six weeks area businesses have been meeting with Western Michigan University manufacturing and engineering faculty and staff to explore green manufacturing opportunities.

By July 1, or shortly thereafter, some of those companies are expected to become part of the Green Manufacturing Industrial Consortium, an intiative formed to provide services to help companies become greener.

The consortium is an outgrowth of a conference on Western's campus in May attended by 90 people interested in learning about green manufacturing projects and programs.

The program has been made possible by a $1 million federal award to Dr. John Patten, chair of manufacturing engineering and director of the WMU Center for Manufacturing Research.

The award is intended to assist businesses throughout West Michigan in creating more energy efficient and environmentally benign processes and products.

Consortium members pay $25,000 to participate. The funds are used to cover in part the cost of those doing research work on the projects.

Besides Patten, six students already are exploring the green projects.

Although the consortium will form soon it is not expected to be up to full strength till January 2011.

Patten says so far participating companies have shown the most interested in two areas: learning about minimizing their use of energy, and the use of green materials with respect to how that could help reduce waste.

Through a survey and discussions with company representatives 12 topics for study have emerged. The challenge now will be to discover common themes within those 12 areas and determine which to pursue based on mutual interests and benefits for the largest number of businesses. Researchers will be looking for solutions that can be applied at one location and shared with others. As the need arises, faculty from WMU or other universities will be called in to work on the projects.

Writer: Kathy Jennings.
Source: Dr. John Patten, Western Michigan University