Ryuichi Saitoh/Hiroki Yamakiri/Tsuneo Kurita/Shinsuke Kondoh/Nozomu Mishima/Shinya Sasaki
The Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology, vol. 24, no. 1, pp.275-278, 2010

Abstract : Recent engineering products must meet the demand for downsizing and sophistication. Environmentally benign manufacturing has also become a key technology for sustainable development. Striking a balance between product quality and environmental impact in manufacturing processes has become an important issue in the design of eco-friendly products. However, despite this increasing demand from the industry, there is dearth of research on the environmental impact of processing as compared to studies on conventional manufacturing factors such as cost and time. We have tried to clarify the relationship between quality and environmental impact directly from experimental data. The pitting process that we chose as our experimental process is one of the most general and important processes in the industry. In this paper, we discuss a basic concept for selecting optimal processing methods and conditions for the pitting process from the aspect of employing an environmentally benign process. By applying our study to the industry, engineers can easily conduct processes that are not only high in quality but also low in environmental impact.

Keyword : Sustainable development; Environmentally benign process; Process quality; Desktop-size machine tool