Swarco Road Marking Systems says its next generation SolidPlus premium reflective glass beads not only improve road safety, but are also produced sustainably.
Continuous improvement of production processes allows us to use resources efficiently and responsibly and reduce our environmental impact. New data analytics software is now helping to unlock additional potential for increased sustainability in production.
With their superior reflective properties, these premium reflective glass beads improve the visibility of road markings in challenging conditions, making roads safer. They are the result of many years of continuous research and development at the Swarco Competence Center for Road Marking Systems. Glass technologies and marking systems.
Modern driver assistance systems rely on clearly visible road markings. Dark, wet conditions and glare from oncoming headlights remain challenging conditions. They require clearly detectable marking systems that can be recognized by vehicle sensors even in adverse conditions. This has important implications for the development of advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous vehicles. The better road markings are detected by cameras and lidar sensors, the safer road movement will be for people and cars.
At the same time, according to Svarko, SolidPlus has always been produced in the most environmentally friendly way. Friedrich Wiesinger, head of the Swarco Competence Center, explains that since last year, “new generation glass beads” have been produced in one of the most advanced and efficient reflective glass bead production facilities. One hundred percent of the electricity needed comes from renewable sources, some of which comes from photovoltaic panels on the roof of the production facility.
That’s not all, he said. “We have set ourselves very ambitious goals to make our products more environmentally friendly. By researching new glass formulations based on natural raw materials, we aim to produce the most environmentally friendly reflective glass beads in the world.”
New dedicated data analytics software is now being used to achieve these goals by closely examining supply chains and emissions throughout manufacturing processes and product life cycles. It even makes it possible to accurately determine the environmental footprint of individual products such as SolidPlus.
The collected data helps the competence center carry out targeted research. For example, the software can determine which raw materials have a particularly high carbon footprint. These are then replaced where possible with cleaner resources.
“Our product development team is looking for ways to move away from environmentally harmful materials to alternatives with the smallest environmental footprint,” Wissinger said. “This helps reduce emissions, waste and long-distance transport, and enables an efficient circular economy. These specific plans aim to make Swarco SolidPlus production more sustainable in the long term.”
Post time: Sep-26-2024