Session Details
Tuesday, May 7, 2024, 10:00 AM
Summary:
Weight reduction strategies lead to more efficient products and play a crucial role in minimizing the environmental footprint of manufacturing processes. By adopting these strategies, companies can contribute significantly to a more sustainable future.
Who should attend:
Designers, Engineers, and Marketers Engaged in Product Development.
What you will learn:
Reducing weight is a foundational strategy for enhancing environmental sustainability across various industries. This presentation will detail strategies for achieving this goal, leading to many environmental benefits.
- Less Plastic, Part Consolidation, More Innovation:
- Investigating ways to reduce plastic consumption while maintaining product integrity.
- Showcasing innovations such as lightweight composite materials.
- Comparing different types of materials for lightweighting.
- Metal Replacement/Alternative Material Evaluation:
- Exploring alternative materials for metal replacement.
- Discussing the benefits of lightweighting in terms of both performance and environmental impact.
- Lasting Product Performance Benefits:
- Highlighting how to design lightweight products for durability and utility.
- Discussing the environmental impact of longer product life cycles.
- Improved Production Efficiency:
- How to streamline your production processes to achieve energy savings.
- Emphasizing the impact of lightweight products on transportation-related emissions and the benefits of optimizing overall transportation weight.
- Exploring the latest innovations in lighter-weight materials for the transportation industry.
How Avient can help:
Details about how our products and services can support various lightweighting strategies.
- CFAs (Chemical Foaming Agents):
- Discuss how these agents contribute to lightweighting, quality improvements, dimensional control, and throughput efficiency.
- Long Fiber Reinforced Materials:
- Explore the benefits of using long fibers for increased strength and reduced weight.
- Advanced Composites:
- Highlight technologies that enhance the structural properties of materials, allowing for weight reduction.
Speaker Details
Full Name
Rob Poupard
Job Title
Senior Technology Manager, ADTS-Technical Service, Color, Additives and Inks
Speaker Bio
Robert Poupard is the Senior Technology Manager and Manager of Technical Service for the Color, Additives, and Inks business unit in the North American (NA) region at Avient Corporation. Avient is a leading provider of specialized and sustainable materials solutions and services. Robert started working with Avient (then Clariant Masterbatch business) in 2001 as a technical and sales trainee. Over the years, he has held various technical roles, including lab management and technical service, and has worked in several manufacturing locations across the U.S. He spent three years in the fiber market out of Dalton, GA, and ten years managing the design lab in Minneapolis, MN, where he developed a diverse product line of color and additive custom products. In Minneapolis, Robert also worked for two years supporting the Operations Excellence program. Since 2015, Robert has been living in his home state of Michigan. He holds a bachelor's degree in applied chemistry focused on plastics and rubber from Ferris State University in Big Rapids, MI.
Full Name
Marc-Henry Wakim
Job Title
Senior Product Development Engineer
Speaker Bio
Marc-Henry Wakim is a Senior Product Development Engineer at Avient Corporation, where he has gained over a decade of experience specializing in long fiber reinforced thermoplastic structural part design, design for manufacturability, finite element analysis, and moldflow simulation. He obtained his master’s degree in mechanical engineering from UMass Lowell and later pursued an MBA from St. Mary’s University. He also holds certifications in Six Sigma and plastic part design. He currently resides in New Hampshire.