Company Name: Brose China Co., Ltd.
Project Name: Sustainable Door Moduel
Award Category: Innovation Sustainable Product
Product / Service Introduction
With the development of electrification and intelligence of automobiles, the new functional components have increasing challenges in layout and lightweight that put forward higher requirements for CO² emissions throughout the life cycle of products. The new generation of Brose door modules is characterized by high integration, lightweight, environmental protection and leanness:
Integration: The integration of side door system parts eliminates components such as waterproof, fasteners and brackets, etc.
Lightweight: Replace steel with plastic to reduce the weight 3-5kg per vehicle.
More environmentally friendly: The material selection of the door module substrate has a significant impact on the ecology of the product. Based on the mature application of thermoplastic material PP-LGF, the new generation of door module increases a certain proportion of recycled PP material. The recycled material comes from PCR (Post-Consumer Recycled material), further optimizing the environmental impact in the product life cycle to support the goal of low-carbon environmental protection and sustainable development.
Lean: Door Module can be supplied in JIS (Just In Time), which saves logistics costs, simples assembly methods, helps lean production of vehicle production lines. It also further optimizes energy-saving and low-carbon performance in logistics, warehousing, and process production stages.
The new generation of door modules will be mass-produced in 2024 and will be used in several new vehicle models.
Explanation of Circular Economy Practice
Brose sustainable door modules implement the 3Rs principle of circular economy throughout the entire life cycle through lightweight design, recycled materials, and manufacturing processes. It is embodied in three aspects:
Reduction: The high integration of door modules can reduce some components into production and consumption from the source, such as harness clips, waterproof, fasteners and brackets, etc. Hence, it helps save the material cost, logistics warehousing, assembly and maintenance costs of such parts. In addition, the lean production advantage of the door module can improve the efficiency of the production process and reduce the investment in factory.
Reuse: Door modules are adopting reusable packaging during transportation to vehicle manufacturers, reducing waste generation and disposal costs.
Recycling: The door module thermoplastic substrate uses a certain proportion of PCR consumer plastic recycled materials to achieve resource recycling and save energy and resources. According with ISO 22628, the product recoverability rate can reach up to 99.8%.
Overview of Product/Service Lifecycle
Product Design:
Utilizing the flexible molding characteristics of Door Module. The side door components, such as sensors, speakers, latch, etc., can be integrated into the door module to reduce the need for fasteners, waterproofing, and connecting brackets.
Replacement of functional areas of sheet metal with thermoplastic materials as much as possible to meet the operating conditions of the components and systems, in order to reduce the weight of the door.
Design door module substrates and molds according to the material properties of the recycled materials to achieve performance comparable to prime materials.
Design verification based on CAE analysis, saving the verification steps and resources for physical testing.
Production:
100 percent use of renewable energy in manufacturing processes
Lean Manufacturing, increase productivity, reduce line investment
Sequencing production, on-demand production, reduce logistics and warehousing
Logistics with reuseble packaging, optimized transport paths, emissions tracking
Sorting of unavoidable production waste to ensure effective treatment and recycling.
Useage:
Reduces vehicle mass, saves vehicle power or fuel consumption, and reduces CO2 emissions
Thanks to the integrated design, the complexity of after-sales maintenance and the need to replace parts are greatly reduced.
Stable quality and lower warranty costs
Recycling and Recovery:
PCR (Post-Consumer Recycled material) is produced by recycling waste plastics from consumers' daily necessities such as water bottles, shampoo bottles, etc., which are reprocessed and mixed with prime plastics to be used in the manufacturing of products, which not only reduces CO² emissions and energy consumption, but also contributes to the protection of environment through the reduction of landfills and incineration of waste plastics.
