Sustainability has long been a spoken ideal in the manufacturing world, but the complexities and costs associated with it have deterred many producers from updating their workflows. Now, however, growing environmental concerns, rising consumer expectations for ethical production, and increasing regulatory pressures are pushing businesses toward sustainable operations. The concept has evolved from a buzzword into a cornerstone of successful business strategy. It’s no exaggeration to assume that those that refuse to take sustainability seriously now will cease to exist in the future.

Notwithstanding this desire to pursue sustainable manufacturing, it remains a major challenge to achieve end-to-end transparency for ethical production and minimized environmental impact. This is especially true in areas like resource consumption, waste generation and material sourcing. In complex manufacturing and supply chain models, most products pass through several hands and assembly lines before reaching customers, making it difficult to track which components go into the product over time.

Historically, individual businesses or teams have been responsible for specific phases of a product’s lifecycle — design, creation, distribution and sales — and operated with limited knowledge of other groups’ activities. This traditional approach makes it difficult to hold any one party accountable for unethical or unsustainable practices. As sustainability becomes a mandate, the siloed approach will no longer work.

To meet the goals of sustainable manufacturing, it becomes necessary to create a holistic view of the product lifecycle, employing a digital thread or similar unifying mechanism. The digital thread maintains relationships among all of a product’s digital assets, across multiple domains of the supply chain.

Many organizations still think in terms of documents and files, which aren’t suitable for traceability and maintaining a cohesive digital thread. Instead, data should "leave" the confines of files in which it’s often buried, and transition to a data-node-based management system. This approach uses nodes that include metadata and relationships, providing a more flexible and interconnected framework for managing product data.

The goal is to create a collection of contextualized and traceable product data that improves transparency for all stakeholders, including the customer. With this systematic approach, businesses can get a better idea of what’s happening at each stage of product development, and identify potential improvements for sustainability and greater efficiency.

Implementing a digital thread strategy can be challenging, especially if you’re not familiar with all stages and stakeholders of the product lifecycle, or unaware of the impact that siloed data can have on current operations. The following steps will help you familiarize yourself with existing processes, while establishing best practices that lead to a comprehensive digital thread:

Develop sustainability requirements through a systems lens. Sustainability is best achieved by viewing processes and products as part of a large, overarching system, rather than in isolation. This approach requires collaboration among stakeholders from various stages of product lifecycle management, including development, supply chain, and operations. Together, they can develop clear, measurable sustainability benchmarks based on current goals and bottlenecks. By setting cross-disciplinary requirements, they ensure that everyone has the same level of visibility needed to create a holistic digital thread, while prioritizing the highest-value sustainability-driven initiatives. Establishing requirements in this way also gives the entire group of product lifecycle management (PLM) stakeholders a standardized methodology upon which to base future production decisions. 

Update production and manufacturing practices. With a requirements-based, data-driven digital thread officially in place, it’s time to weave this framework into production and manufacturing. Start by assessing the environmental impact of substances, solvents, raw materials and components during the design phase. Make sure your decisions align with your sustainability goals and any relevant third-party regulations. Next, monitor how these designs play out in the real-world manufacturing process. You should also consider the effects of transportation and manufacturing equipment on your environmental footprint. Unified and diverse data is key, as it enables you to see how well your designs are meeting sustainability metrics and benchmarks. 

Include service and customer usage data in your digital thread. When it comes to sustainability, some of the biggest environmental impacts occur after the product leaves manufacturing and is reused by customers. That’s why it’s important to incorporate customer usage, end-of-life and recycling opportunities into your sustainable digital thread strategy. Wherever possible, integrate sustainable monitoring and tracking systems into your products to ensure that they continue to meet sustainable standards even after reaching the customer.

Make iterative updates to your digital thread. Developing an effective digital thread takes time. Available resources might not materialize until later, ideas for top-priority sustainability goals may evolve, and third-party sustainability regulations and consumer expectations may change. Make inventory of your data sources, and start creating the thread. Use impact analysis to understand the effects of potential changes. As you identify gaps in your sustainability strategy or datasets through consistent performance monitoring, rework your strategy through the same best-practices framework you’ve already established. Over time, you’ll develop a stronger digital thread that can quickly shift to meet changing demands.

Establishing a digital thread isn’t just great for achieving transparency in sustainability. It also has a more immediate and pragmatic impact, as new consumer product regulations loom on the horizon.

As part of the European Union’s proposed Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), all sellers of consumer electronics in the region will be required to include a Digital Product Passport (DPP) as part of their products by 2026. Similarly, all sellers of textile-based products will be required to include a DPP with their products by 2030. 

The DPP serves as a roadmap or timeline that details every product component, as well as information about when, where and how those components were sourced. This regulation aims to create more transparency and trust with consumers, while also enforcing the traceability necessary to holding businesses to higher sustainability standards.

Currently, most businesses don’t have the processes or data-organization mechanisms in place to comply with this regulation. Adopting a digital thread strategy now is one of the best ways to prepare. It's important to start collecting information as early as possible to "feed" the digital thread. Information may come from many sources, but it needs to be linked into the thread. While creation of a digital thread can be a challenging and time-consuming process, it will help businesses meet current and future regulations, ensuring long-term compliance and sustainability.

Patrick Willemsen is director of technical community with Aras.