Despite its current standing in the business community, industrial design has not always been considered a core business practice. Over many years, the design community has grown its own capabilities and made a compelling case for how design practice can deliver ROI.
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The long-term expense of operating and maintaining a vacuum cleaner usually costs consumers much more than the vacuum’s purchase price.
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On January 11, 2010, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on lithium ion (and lithium metal) batteries.
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While appliance industry OEMs may not see themselves as part of the plastics industry, those who design and produce their plastic components know better. At SPI, we welcome membership by captive and custom manufacturers serving the appliance industry. And, whether or not a designer’s company is an SPI member, they have everything to gain from attending the NPE2009 international plastics exposition and conference being held June 22-26 at Chicago’s McCormick Place.
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Energy efficiency and going “green” is all the rage these days. All industries, including those making appliances, electronic equipment, and data centers, are promoting higher energy efficiency and its resulting savings. The two aspects of saving, both saving the environment and saving on utility bills, appeal to a wide spectrum of constituents that includes manufacturers, end users of products, industry investors, and environmentalists. With the current level of social awareness, improving the energy efficiency of products can simultaneously increase sales while delivering societal benefits. In the future, all energy-consuming products are expected to embrace energy efficiency as its primary product development objective and marketing theme.
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Shortly after being named president of ARI in February, I was asked by several different media representatives what some of my priority issues would be. In each case, I said being proactive in the responsible use of refrigerants would be one of our top priorities.
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