When it comes to opening doors—whether to events, museums, airports, hotel rooms, office buildings, or homes—an ASSA ABLOY product is probably at work. As the global leader in door-opening solutions, ASSA ABLOY offers a complete range of locking, access control, identification technology, entrance automation, and hotel security systems. With more than 43,000 employees and annual revenue of SEK 5.4 billion, the manufacturer maintains market leadership positions in Europe, North America, Asia, and the Pacific.
The company attributes its success to its commitment to listening to its customers. ASSA ABLOY periodically conducts “voice of the customer” interviews with architects, door manufacturers, and others involved in specifying and purchasing its products. According to Markus Bade, director of innovation, Central Europe, recent customer outreach has resulted in one of the company’s most important R&D projects: implementing a sustainable product development program.
“Our customers are asking for Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for our products,” Bade says. “They need this information to attain DGNB, LEED, and BREEAM environmental certifications for green buildings. ASSA ABLOY will need to provide environmental impact information on our products as a matter of doing business.”
The first step in calculating an EPD—an environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study that is tailored to the building construction industry—is to conduct baseline sustainable engineering on an existing product. ASSA ABLOY’s engineering team in the Netherlands undertook a pilot project to redesign a door-locking mechanism. The Dutch team needed an engineering tool to assess and compare the environmental impacts of existing and modified designs. They chose SOLIDWORKS® Sustainability software.
“We discovered SOLIDWORKS Sustainability software at an innovation conference and decided to use it on the pilot project,” Bade recalls. “The next era in innovation will be about sustainability. Many of our operations use SOLIDWORKS design software, so we had confidence that SOLIDWORKS Sustainability software could help our team improve the sustainability of this product.”
SAVING MONEY AND PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT
Using SOLIDWORKS Sustainability environmental impact assessment and SOLIDWORKS Simulation design analysis software, ASSA ABLOY engineers designed a new doorlocking mechanism. The team not only lessened the product’s environmental impact, they also reduced manufacturing costs by 15 percent. The team cut the number of materials used, replaced custom nickel- and chrome-plated materials with stainless steel, and redesigned the latch tail. SOLIDWORKS Simulation analyses indicated that the design was overly strong, so they also reduced material weight and thickness. Other changes included closing the lock case, riveting the cover, and screwing on the front plate.
“The material savings are quite dramatic,” Bade stresses. “When you cast nearly a million metal parts each year, every gram that you can cut from each part means less impact on the environment and lower cost. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that by evaluating the environmental impact of a product, we can save money and protect the environment.”
