Product lifecycle management could get boost from green manufacturing initiatives

I've been working on a sales territory analysis for the state of Tennessee, which has been hard-hit by the current recession, especially in its biggest industry, manufacturing. But the good news is that this sector is apparently still interested in technology that can help them with their green manufacturing efforts.

In a recent survey by Eye For Transport, a market research firm in London, 95 percent of North American manufacturing and operations executives said their green manufacturing projects will increase and expand through 2009. About 43 percent of them believed that eco-initiatives improved their companies’ bottom lines through better product quality and increased operational efficiency. Half of the survey respondents were specifically interested in energy management projects.

This sort of data really validates product lifecycle management software developer PTC's recent acquisition of Synapsis Technology, which makes an application that helps track whether or not the materials used within a particular product meet environmental standards and compliance regulations including RoHS, WEEE, ELV, REACH and China's RoHS. By the way, REACH stands for Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals, and its one of the more recent regulations dreamed up by the European Union to track hazardous substances that are of "very high concern." Among companies that Synapsis publicly claims as customers are Cisco Systems, Delphi, GE, IBM, Motorola and Sony Ericsson.

Among other things, Synapsis' technology will be integrated with Windchill, which is PTC's content and process management application.