Plastic Fischer is using Siemens' Solid Edge for Startups and Xcelerator portfolio to bring their river plastic capture technology to scale.
Siemens currently offers the Solid Edge for Startups program that allows eligible startups to have free access to CAD software and beyond for product development. Recently, a startup named Plastic Fischer, demonstrated how it uses Solid Edge and other solutions to develop and scale their plastic-capturing technology. The goal is to scale the device to not only meet global demand but expand its impact and continue to eliminate plastic before it can reach the world’s oceans. But the software suite is also helping the startup to digitally transform their current production and lifecycle management pipeline, allowing faster response times to challenges in the field and asynchronous operations for their geographically dispersed team.
“We are thrilled to see how Plastic Fischer is taking advantage of the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio to not only design and engineer the next generation of its innovative technology, but to also support global collaboration with its geographically dispersed teams to manufacture its TrashBoom system, using local resources,” said Eryn Devola, head of Sustainability for Siemens Digital Industries.
Tackling Ocean Plastic at the Source
Plastic Fischer is a startup founded in 2019 by three friends after witnessing the horrifying plastic pollution levels in the Mekong River in Vietnam.
The company’s founding technology is the TrashBoom. This floating device that can capture plastic and other debris in rivers before it can reach the ocean, where it is much harder to collect and eliminate. The TrashBoom was intentionally designed to use locally available materials so that it can be built in the communities where it is used, creating jobs while working to protect the environment. By intervening in rivers, the goal is to reduce the amount of time plastic is in the water, prevent decomposition into microplastics, reduce plastic entering the food chain, and minimize the effects on sensitive marine ecosystems.
Using the device, local communities can collect plastic in rivers and bring the debris to the company’s material recovery facilities. Local employees then separate the items into recyclable and non-recyclable materials, with recyclable objects sold and reintroduced into the supply chain and non-recyclable materials incinerated to offset the use of coal. In an interview with Siemens, the founders of Plastic Fischer explained that they are always looking for ways to improve the circular economy, especially as it relates to their plastic retrieval and remediation processes.
“Our mission is to develop simple technologies to stop ocean plastic effectively and efficiently when it is already in rivers. Our TrashBoom systems can be built in the location of intended operation by local people. Avoiding imports allows us to implement fast and saves time, money, and carbon,” said Aviel Itzhak, Chief Technology Officer, Plastic Fischer.
The company describes the TrashBoom as a simple, low-cost device that can be made and deployed in local communities most affected by plastic waste. The technology is composed of a steel barrier and fence attached to PVC tubing to provide buoyancy. The simple design can then be scaled and customized exactly as needed to fit the width of any river. After the barrier is in place and debris has built up over time, local full-time employees collect the captured plastic and debris. Currently, the company operates in India and Indonesia, and their local operations have diverted more than 800 metric tons of plastic from the ocean. At the moment, the company has 36 devices deployed globally, with plans to continue to scale to meet the global demand for plastic waste intervention.
Solid Edge Provides Flexibility for Ongoing Innovation
As every river is a little bit different, the founders of the company knew the device needed to be modular, flexible, and adaptable to changing environments. For Plastic Fischer, one of the main issues they had with their previous CAD software was the limited assembly and drawing features. They found this made it very difficult to make quick changes to designs as challenges emerged in the field. Instead, responses were expensive and time-consuming to meet unique demands at each river collection site.
According to Siemens, the utility of Solid Edge and their other solutions is the ability to customize existing CAD designs as engineers react in real-time to problems in the field. Although this may seem straightforward, it is an essential process for scaling the TrashBoom, as every device needs to be tailored to each river site.
Plastic Fischer also highlighted one additional benefit to their transition to Solid Edge: asynchronous work. With Teamcenter Share, the company can now work on the same projects and files across diverse locations and time zones. So, expertise can be directly sourced and shared across all projects in an efficient manner. The founders explained that part of their team is based in Cologne and focused on designing solutions and modifications to the device. However, they need to be able to communicate and quickly innovate in collaboration with their diverse collection sites in India and Indonesia to avoid delays or catastrophic issues in the field. Teamcenter Share makes it easy to ensure operations can continue without delay and challenges are quickly resolved.
“The combination of Solid Edge and cloud-based collaboration enabled with Teamcenter Share will provide us with the engineering capabilities, scalability and collaborative environment that we need to move our operations into their next stage of development and fuel our expansion to bring affordable, sustainable technologies to remove plastic from our planet’s rivers,” added Itzhak.
Startups are Making the Most of the Xcelerator Portfolio
Beyond Plastic Fischer, Siemens has highlighted other companies utilizing Solid Edge and other solutions to accelerate our response to the climate crisis.
For example, eNovates, a Belgian company, is responsible for expanding electric charging station infrastructure across the European Union. One issue they face in their development process is the ongoing changes in charging station regulations and requirements. How can a company innovate if the dial is constantly shifting? To approach this challenge with flexibility, the company is using the Solid Edge suite to design, modify, and scale their charger designs, including all the different materials and parts that are used in the complete design. By using the full software suite, the company can ensure ongoing changes are efficiently implemented and integrated with a consistent production pipeline from conception to testing to installation.
Overall, it seems that an ongoing thread of engineers using Solid Edge is its ability to integrate into real-world design scenarios. The Xcelerator suite is truly letting engineers respond to challenges that emerge in real-time and reduce expensive and time-consuming solutions that can even end up being manual. The utility of the startup program in particular is accessing these solutions for free. As long as specific company metrics are met, this seems to be an ideal resource for inexpensive innovation in the early stages of product development and scaling.
