Professorial lecture explores sustainable manufacturing
Innovative sustainable manufacturing processes could ensure industry can meet the demands of today’s consumers without compromising the needs of future generations.
Professor Anjali De Silva, Professor of Manufacturing Engineering, will use her cutting-edge research in advanced machining to explore the future of sustainable manufacturing in the latest Professorial Lecture at Glasgow Caledonian University.
Drawing on her research expertise in unconventional machining processes, Professor De Silva will explore how the manufacturing industry could create products using processes that are non-polluting, conserve energy and natural resources, and are economically sound and safe for employees, communities, and consumers – ensuring that future generations, as well as our own, can meet their needs.
Professor De Silva said: “Big companies are already taking sustainable manufacturing on board and adjusting their processes but SMEs must embrace the opportunity to collaborate with universities to develop processes that are sustainable. My work at GCU focuses on advanced machining, and moving beyond the tools that have been typically used to develop instead lasers, electrical discharges and electro chemicals so we can cut greenhouse emissions and reduce the consumption of vital resources. We’re also working with environmentally friendly cutting fluids such as water and low emission electrolytes instead of traditional acids and kerosene.
“Our students will be the engineers of tomorrow who automatically think about sustainable design and manufacture, so that industry benefits as well as future generations.”
Professor Anjali’s Professorial Lecture - Sustainable Manufacturing should be able to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs - is in the Deeprose Lecture Theatre, room A005, Govan Mbeki building at 5.30pm on Tuesday, April 30.