Targeted Chemicals Minimization in Design and Manufacturing

The defense industry has previously relied heavily on hazardous chemicals in a variety of manufacturing operations. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identified 17 of these hazardous chemicals under the provisions of the 33/50 program that are to be reduced or eliminated. In line with policy decisions and public expectations, the Pentagon is further committed to this reduction effort for all new system acquisitions. The purpose of this paper is to describe how the use of these 17 chemicals can be reduced in defense industry systems without violating other critical constraints such as other environmental regulations, government contract requirements, and the need to provide a highly reliable product. The scope of this environmental project includes developing replacements for these 17 chemicals that either meet or exceed the original quality requirements without increasing cost. Advanced methods and problem solving tools (such as benchmarking, technology transfer, Taguchi, and Quality Function Deployment) are used to focus on the critical issues. For each of these 17 chemicals, the technical and environmental considerations are examined and a replacement (or alternate approach) is presented for each application used.