Digitalized Material Selection Achieves 40% Fewer Emissions

The specialist in gripping and clamping technology is already planning the next step: a company-wide system containing all material information.

Daniel Barta has been working as a development engineer at SCHUNK since 2012. In this role, he is deeply involved in the topic of materials. Within SCHUNK’s products, materials are one of the keys to innovation, cost efficiency, and sustainability – or, as Barta puts it, “the foundation of every technical decision.”

Early on, he looked for ways to improve material selection within SCHUNK’s digital transformation. For a long time – as is still common in many companies today – it was largely based on experience and data sheets.

He eventually found what he was looking for at CADFEM: after several months of testing, the Ansys Granta Selector material database was introduced. Since then, it has systematically supported SCHUNK’s developers in choosing the right materials.

Application of a pneumatic parallel gripper. | © SCHUNK

How Ansys Granta Selector Simplifies Robust Material Decisions

With Ansys Granta Selector, the development team has access to an immense range of precise material data. Its extensive filtering and comparison capabilities make transparent decisions possible, quickly and based on data – even as complexity increases. In the EcoAudit module of Ansys Granta Selector, materials are evaluated according to sustainability criteria, and the corresponding metrics are displayed. Since SCHUNK’s customers must also meet sustainability requirements, these objective insights offer a significant competitive advantage.

Sustainability analysis of a SCHUNK standard gripper using the EcoAudit module from Ansys Granta Selector shows CO2 savings potential of over 40%. | © SCHUNK

A Closer Look at Gripper Components: 40% Less Emissions

The capabilities of Ansys Granta Selector with the EcoAudit module become clear when examining a gripper system. First, all components were analyzed for their CO2 output. Next, attention shifted to those parts with the highest values. For these, Ansys Granta Selector identified two approaches with the greatest potential for CO2 reduction:

• using secondary materials for emissions‑intensive components – that is, materials with a high recycled content
• manufacturing these components using additive processes powered by renewable energy

Taken together, this resulted in a 40% CO2 reduction for the product. With these results from Ansys Granta Selector, SCHUNK can now actively pursue the development of more sustainable products.

SCHUNK pursues ambitious sustainability goals. | © SCHUNK

Scaling Material Knowledge Across the Company With Ansys Granta MI

Since Ansys Granta Selector provides measurable benefits for SCHUNK’s product development in terms of cost, process efficiency, and sustainability, the question of scaling naturally arises:

How can other departments benefit? What could a company-wide material data platform look like? And how can connected material knowledge create additional competitive advantages?

The answer from Daniel Barta and CADFEM is Ansys Granta MI – the “MI” stands for Material Intelligence. This enterprise‑level solution offers a 360° view of everything related to materials. It connects not only the engineering team but all departments with material touchpoints – testing, development, purchasing, and compliance – each contributing to and drawing from the system.

Such a digital, highly connected, and continuously updated central source of information reduces manual steps across the company. It will elevate how SCHUNK and its customers manage all material‑related information – improving efficiency, cost‑effectiveness, and sustainability.

SCHUNK SE & Co KG headquarters in Lauffen am Neckar. | © SCHUNK

CADFEM meets Daniel Barta

In conversation with CADFEM employee Marc Vidal, Daniel Barta provides many more insights into the topic of digitized material selection at SCHUNK. Watch the video now.