Full circle: life cycle management procedures for printer cartridges have been put into practice at HP.

An increasing number of companies, interest groups and communities are broadening their thinking about the total environmental impact of products. Rather than just focusing on energy efficiency or recycling, they're pointing to the far-reaching and collective effects of a product's development, manufacture, packaging, distribution, use and disposal on the overall environment.

To meet this new view, many companies are turning to product life cycle management (PLM), which is an integrated approach to reducing the environmental footprint of a product.

PLM is favored by many who want to consider everything involved in making, shipping, using and disposing of or recycling a product, including raw materials, water and energy, air emissions, liquid effluents and solid wastes. The intended result is a more interdependent and long-term understanding and management of a product's environmental impact.

BOTTOM LINE BENEFITS. In addition to environmental benefits, PLM can also generate significant business and competitive advantages by aiding businesses' constant search for new ways to achieve operational excellence, differentiate their products and fulfill customer expectations.

The net result includes reducing costs, ensuring regulatory compliance, delivering improved product features and functionality and strengthening brand perception and loyalty--all while helping the environment.

The challenges to introducing and sustaining PLM can be daunting, however. Because it requires a company to scrutinize its decision-making criteria and processes, this approach can be disruptive to established--and successful--business practices and processes.

In contrast to environmental, health and safety (EHS) programs, which are often managed at a corporate level, PLM is most effective when it is applied to the design, manufacture, shipping and recycling of a specific product. Beyond the mechanics of integrating PLM into established practices and processes, environmental programs are most successful when they align with core business needs. PLM is more than just an initiative applied selectively to meet short-term goals; it's a fundamentally different way of thinking about products, requiring a shift in organizational philosophy, priorities and measures. As a result, commitment from management to support and champion PLM is absolutely essential to its success.

MOTIVATING FACTORS. Growing customer, market and competitive pressures, as well as governmental regulations and industry standards, have helped to spur more integrated efforts to reduce a product's environmental footprint.

Now more than ever, customers are requiring companies to demonstrate an all-encompassing commitment to the environment. For example, in 2003 Hewlett-Packard (HP), Palo Alto, Calif., competed for several billion dollars in potential corporate and government contracts that required information about the company's social and environmental policies. Government agencies and standards organizations have also played a role in advancing product life cycle management.

The overarching goal is to develop preventative solutions that increase value up front rather than focusing on treating problems later with more time and money.

RECYCLING RESULTS. HP has realized similar progress in advancing the recycling of inkjet print cartridges. First introduced for its LaserJet print cartridges in 1991 and expanded to include its inkjet print cartridges in 1997, HP's Planet Partners program offers free and convenient cartridge return and recycling in more than 30 countries around the world.

The success of this effort, in large part, can be attributed to the company's commitment to product life cycle management. When HP prepared to launch the HP Planet Partners take-back program for inkjet cartridges, it faced one particularly large hurdle: there was no commercially available recycling process for effectively managing "wet" components. Virtually all recycling technology was focused on dry goods, like paper or aluminum.

Residual ink in empty inkjet print cartridges can limit the recovery of metals and plastics and make the pieces stick to each other and to equipment, complicating the recycling process.

To meet this challenge, HP invented a proprietary process to purify and shred print cartridges, remove the ink and separate the plastic and metal portions for further refinement. This effort helped establish a recycling program from the ground up that minimizes landfill and maximizes recovery of materials.

In fact, HP took back 1.8 million of its inkjet cartridges in 2003, recycling an average of 70 percent of total materials by weight. Less than 1 percent of the processed material went to landfills--keeping significant volumes of plastic and metals out of the waste stream and available for use in new products. HP has improved the effectiveness of its recycling program by emphasizing the importance of making inkjet cartridges easier to recycle.

By explicitly linking end-of-life recycling practices to product design, HP works to eliminate the use of adhesives and minimize the number of parts and plastic types--all to improve the recyclability of products. The elimination of adhesives used in the HP 80 large-format inkjet print cartridge increases its recyclability by 25 percent. The end result is a more efficient and less costly recycling program.

In applying PLM, HP also linked its marketing efforts to its environmental goals by prominently promoting the Planet Partners program and educating customers on how to return their used print cartridges. Recognizing that customers want environmentally responsible disposal of products, HP packages pre-paid envelopes with many new inkjet cartridges to return empty cartridges for recycling. The company offers a similar take-back program for its HP LaserJet cartridges.

Closely linking product design and marketing efforts with end-of-life processes may seem like an obvious idea in retrospect, but PLM provided the necessary foundation to cement those associations.

A FINAL WORD. Because its effects are so far-reaching, PLM must be embraced and practiced by all levels of an organization, from the management suite to the assembly line. Adopting a PLM approach can help companies practice more proactive environmental stewardship by amplifying the collective benefits of their efforts across every phase of their products, helping to improve their bottom line as well as the welfare of the customers and communities they serve.

DOLLARS AND SENSE

Making improvements to benefit the environment can also benefit the bottom line. To go forward, product life cycle management (PLM) activities must be aligned with a compelling business case.

For instance, a product's environmental improvements can help lower material acquisition and disposal costs, generate higher product quality and yield while cutting waste associated with processing and shipping.

PLM often prompts a broader approach to quantifying and analyzing process and product changes. In building the business case for improving a product's environmental profile, companies should look beyond traditional areas of focus and consider the full scope and impact of potential changes, including those that anticipate customer needs, new standards, developing technologies and emerging markets.

It is also essential to identify and capture the often unknown savings or financial benefits of improvements, such as improved operations, increased sales and stronger customer preference and brand loyalty. One should also consider the costs in potential fines or lost business if a product does not comply with regulations or standards.

The author is worldwide manager of Inkjet Cartridge Recycling for HP, Palo Alto, Calif.