National Defense Center for Environmental Excellence. Dale A. Denny, Ph.D. Executive Director

Transcription

1 National Defense Center for Environmental Excellence Dale A. Denny, Ph.D. Executive Director The National Defense Center for Environmental Excellence (NDCEE) was established by a Congressional mandate in 1990 with a broad directive: to serve as a leadership organization to address high priority environmental problems for the Department of Defense (DoD), other government organizations and the industrial community, on a national basis. The Department of Defense sponsors the NDCEE through the office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Environment that has designated the Army Materiel Command, the NDCEE's executive agent in the DoD. The NDCEE received $5 million a year in baseline funding for 1990, 1991 and 1992, with $15 million a year planned from 1993 through The scope of NDCEE's enabling legislation covers a wide range of environmental activities, such as: hazardous waste remediation, management of RCRA-type wastes, waste minimization, municipal-type solid waste and incineration issues, air pollution control, medical waste disposal, mixed waste disposal, contaminated site remediation, chemical weapons destruction, recycling, water pollution control and water usage, underground storage tanks and nuclear waste disposal. From this broad range of environmental activities, the NDCEE was directed, as an initial thrust, to demonstrate environmentally compliant manufacturing technologies. A major object of this initial thrust is for the NDCEE to develop the capability to demonstrate environmentally compliant technologies for discrete metal parts manufacturing and maintenance operations and then to transition qualified technologies to government and industrial manufacturing facilities. Through NDCEE, these technologies are demonstrated, evaluated and implemented to satisfy high priority environmental issues facing government and industrial operating facilities. The National Defense Environmental Corporation (NDEC), a not-for-profit subsidiary of the University of Pittsburgh Trust, manages the NDCEE contract with the DoD. The NDEC has procured a combined office and factory complex to be built in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, to support the NDCEE's activities. This manufacturing facility provides the NDCEE with a working capability to accommodate joint efforts by government, industry and academia. These groups will use the facility to demonstrate viable solutions to prevent or reduce environmental pollutants, to resolve health and safety hazards associated with industrial production, to provide operations support and to develop advanced maintenance and abatement processes. A national resource, the manufacturing facility is equipped for full-scale technology and systems operation and 1172

2 The Proceedings ol: the 79th AESF Annual Technical Conferen& Juri- 2cZ-SE5, 1Clr-Z Atlanta, Georgia The American Electroplaters and Surface Finishers Society, Inc. (AESF) is an international, individualmembership, professional, technical and educational society for the advancement of electroplating and surface finishing. AESF fosters this advancement through a broad research program and comprehensive educational programs, which benefit its members and all persons involved in this widely diversified industry, as well as govemment agencies and the general public. AESF disseminates technical and practical information through its monthly joumal, Plating and Surface Finishing, and through reports and other publications, meetings, symposia and conferences. Membership in AESF is open to all surface finishing professionals as well as to those who provide services, supplies, equipment, and support to the industry. According to the guidelines established by AESF's Meetings and Symposia Committee, all authors of papers to be presented at SUWFIN@have been requested to avoid commercialism of any kind, which includes references to company names (except in the title page of the paper), proprietary processes or equipment. Statements of fact or opinion in these papers are those of the contributors, and the AESF assumes no responsibility for them. ' AI1 acknowledgments and references in the papers are the responsibility of the authors. Published by the American Electroplaters and Surface Finishers Society, Inc Research Parkway Odando, FL Telephone: 407R Fax: 407R Copyright 1992 by American Electroplaters and Surface Finishers Society, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. ais publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or part. in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise wthout the pnor wntten permission of AtSt, T2644 H esearch vahay, Orlando, Printed by AESF Press SUmIN* is a regisbred trademark of the American Electruplaters and Surface Finishers Society, Inc.

3 demonstrations to demonstrate variety of environmentally compliant manufacturing technologies from material receipt through processing, to finished product. The manufacturing facility will enable the NDCEE to work with facility manazefs and operators to understand, evaluate and verify the various technical alternatives available to them with no production line interruption. In addition, the NDCEE manufacturing facility will support transitioning qualified technologies to the United State's government and industrial base by providing key members of private industry and DoD personnel with hands-on training in advanced technological solution and equipment process operations. The manufacturing facility will operate as a "technology mall," a national marketplace where the interaction of vendors of qualified cost-effective, environmentally compliant technologies can demonstrate practical solutions to government and industries' most pressing industrial manufacturing problems. In addition, NDCEE can protect proprietaxy data and process rights through negotiated protective agreements on a caseby-case basis. In order to establish the NDCEE as a national leadership organization, the NDEC is establishing three advisory boards to assist the NDCEE: the Senior Board of Advisors (SBA), the Executive Advisory Council (EAC) and the Technical Advisory Council (TAC). The overall purpose of the councils (Figure 1) is to provide the NDCEE with input from potential users and vendors of environmentally compliant technologies, assist in strategic planning and evaluate NDCEE's progress. The Senior Board of Advisors (SBA) meets at least annually to review and provide input to the NDCEE on national environmental priorities, establish performance measures for the NDCEE, evaluate NDCEE's progress and assist the NDCEE in strategic planning. The NDCEE's Executive Director chairs the board, and board members consist of senior govemment officials, high level executives and corporate vice presidents for the environment from major industries such as the steel, chemical, electronics industries as well as representatives from small industries. SBA members are selected through personal interviews and have a broad perspective of the environmental business and political issues in their area of expertise. In addition, SBA members recognize that there are strong economic and regulatory incentives to manufacture goods in an environmentally compliant manner and that manufacturing capital investment should take into account a longer term view of cost, quality, production rate and environmental liability risk management. The Executive Advisory Council (EAC) will consist of DoD officials and representatives from industrial concerns to advise the NDCEE of near term environmental compliance problems being experienced by the DoD and the private industrial base. The EAC will also participate in the selection of technologies to be 1174

4 1175 demonstrated in the NDCEE manufacturing facility. EAC members have positions of authority within their respective organizations from which they can obligate additional resources for NDCEE investigations, if appropriate. The EAC is an important way for industry to provide input to the NDCEE as to their needs whiie ensuring that the NDCEE focuses on relevant technologies and environmental issues facing operating facilities. Therefore, the likelihood that environmentally compliant technologies will be exported to manufacturing facilities from the NDCEE is increased. Specifically, the EAC will assist the NDCEE with recommendations related to specific issues facing discrete industrial sectors. This includes the identification of means by which to remove technical and administrative barriers to technology transition from the NDCEE, ranking of the problems faced by industrial facilities and review of proposed solutions to these problems. EAC members are eligible to benefit from technology transition by directly participating in the manufacturing facility's demonstration projects. The EAC will also comment on the validity of NDCEE proposed incentives for participation in industry NDCEE projects, provide lists of priority projects for the manufacturing facility and develop lists of prospective facilities for technology "export." Members of the EAC are recruited from and organized around specific "high priority" industry groups with similar facility problems. Publicly available data, from sources including the U.S. EPA's Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), commercial and government reference materials and data obtained from personal contacts, will be analyzed to identify high priority issues facing industries. Then, the NDEC will identify and group DoD and industrial problems into discrete industry sectors using information obtained through interviews with industry experts, trade associations, DoD manufacturing and maintenance facility contacts, and literature references. As a result of this analytical process, the NDCEE will select "high priority" environmental problems suitable for resolution by the NDEC. NDEC selects permanent members to the Executive Advisory Council based on the potential member's ability to commit additional organizational resources in support of NDCEE program activities, demonstrable experience, a clear need to increase the implementation of environmentally compliant technologies, demonstrated industry-wide knowledge, and interest and ability to conduct technology "export" from NDCEE's manufacturing facility to DoD and industrial facilities. The permanent Executive Advisory Council members organize sub-committees of the Council to consider specific problems for discrete "high priority" industry sectors. Each sub-committee, chaired by a permanent member of the Executive Advisory Council, will include plant and DoD facility managers sharing common environmental problems. Having the Council organized around facilities with similar organizational, functional and environmental compliance issues will increase the likelihood that viable solutions will be implemented across the industrial sector.

5 The Technical Advisory Council (TAC) consists of senior executives of vendor and supplier companies, trade associations, industrial societies and academia. The TAC will recommend materials and processes applicable to specific ranked problems identified by the EAC. The Technical Advisory Council is likely to be very "fluid" in membership and organized around high priority industry problems. NDEC selects members for the TAC based upon demonstrated technology, level of experience and willingness to invest their resources in NDCEE. The TAC advises the NDCEE through the EAC by providing low risk solutions to problems identified by the EAC. Members of the TAC can commit organizational resources to the NDCEE for specific investigations. Since there may be more than one vendor with a proposed solution to a problem, the council members include independent academic and industrial consultants who will provide input on the relative merit of competing technologies. The NDEC will solicit input from key public, private and government organizations that focus on technology development to recommend suppliers of technologies with potential solutions to the problems identified by the EAC's ranking of high priority problems. As a result of these interactions, TAC council members will be able to support the implementation of qualified environmentally compliant manufacturing technologies in the manufacturing community. The TAC also provides NDEC with input as to their perspective on the business advantages and risks of the vendor sponsorship and the protection of proprietary information. Through the continuous interaction and information feedback of the SBA, TAC and EAC with the NDCEE, technology users and technology vendors can be brought together to develop, evaluate and transition to the shop floor qualified environmentally compliant technologies. These technologies must produce high-quality products in an efficient and cost effective manner. The NDCEE plans to include DoD officials responsible for military standards on process demonstration evaluation team. This will facilitate DoD approval of requests for exceptions to military standards compliance that result from process changes. The NDCEE staff will perform life cycle evaluations for demonstrated technologies to meet quality, cost, schedule, and environmental goals. Return on investment (ROI) calculations will also be developed so industrial and DoD manufacturers can make informed capital investment decisions. Initially, the DoD has proposed that the NDCEE investigate the following technologies: Non-chromate conversion coating process for aluminum alloy pretreatment 0 Zero discharge powder coating for aerospace equipment 0 Electroless nickel substitute for chrome painting 76

6 Zinc alloy substitute for cadmium plating a High velocity oxygen fuel spray replacement for chrome plating 0 Electrodeposited coating (E-coat) systems to replace spray exposed systems 0 Non-halogenated systems for metal parts cleaning 0 Ion-beam processing to replace chrome and cadmium electroplating The NDEC employs a staff of highly skilled and qualified technical, management, administrative, financial and support personnel to comply with the NDCEE mandate. In addition, the NDEC's multi-disciplinary staff is capable of providing process engineering, quality management, health and safety, environmental engineering, laws and regulations, training, industrial engineering, economics, and environmental. science services. The Five Year Plan prepared by NDEC will determine NDCEE's near term, intermediate term and Ionger term goals consistent with its mission. NDEC's near term objectives are to establish the NDCEE and demonstrate, in the manufacturing facility, environmentally compliant replacement technologies for discrete parts manufacturing and maintenance. Intermediate term objectives will likely focus on expanding manufacturing facility demonstrations to other manufacturing sectors. NDCEE's long term goals will be based on studies designed to identify major national environmental problems and business opportunities beyond the NDCEE's initial tasks.

7 To learn more about the NDCEE, its programs and how you may participate, please contact: NDCEE Contracting Officer Representative (COR) Carmen DiGiandomenico Director, Army Acquisition Pollution Prevention Support Office Department of the Army Headquarters, U.S. Army Materiel Command AMC-RD-E 5001 Eisenhower Avenue, Room 8540 Alexandria, VA Phone: (703) or (717) Fax: (703) Dale A. Denny, Ph.D., Executive Director National Defense Center for Environmental Excellence 1450 Scalp Avenue Johnstown, PA Phone: (814) Fax: (814) Jack Adams Principal Technical Staff National Defense Center for Environmental Excellence 1450 Scalp Avenue Johnstown, PA Phone: (814) Fax: (814)

8 c I 1 I SENIOR BOARD OF ADVISORS I T i Strategic Planning Performance Specific Studies Accomplishments Evaluation 1 I NDCEE MANAGEMENT 1 Problem Identification Support Ranked Problems Mfg. Implementation EAC TAC support Community, Nearterm Technical Implementation compliance Solutions problems Ranked Potential I 1 1 I Solutions 1 A + Resources I b Verified Solution I. Process Performance 1 Feedback Manufacturing facility technology 4 demonstrations t I Resources Implementation Support CEE 1 Figure 1