Dr Mariano Ramirez Senior Lecturer in Design from WSU visits Planex
17 . 08 . 2018
Dr Mariano Ramirez Jr, Senior Lecturer from WSU’s Industrial Design program visited Planex last month to discuss sustainable manufacturing processes and share his research ‘Design for circular economy strategies in the Australian furniture industry’.
Committed to the future of design practice within Australia, Dr Mariano Ramirez was interested to share his research insights and learn about Planex’s environmental manufacturing processes and recent efficiency upgrades to the Hallam factory.
Dr Ramirez’s current areas of research interest include dematerialization of contemporary lifestyles via sustainable product-service systems. Obtaining his Master of Industrial Design from WSU and having studied Sustainable Technology and Product Development at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, Ramirez’s doctoral dissertation concerned the delivery of ecological design education via online tools.
Interested in fostering positive social change and sustainable behaviours through design, Ramirez’s current work explores optimization of product lifetimes, sustainability integration in industrial design education and practice, plus the contributions of industrial design to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Planex CEO Jean-Pierre Jardel, took Dr Ramirez on a tour of the factory, through the prototyping showroom, pre-press, steel punching line, powder coat line, finishing area, dispatch and R&D department followed by an introduction to the people who make Planex storage. Awarded RAIA ‘Best Commercial Building: 2004’, Planex’s 7000m2 purpose built factory is a benchmark for Australian manufacturing. Jardel explained how the production line operated from sheet metal to dispatch to demonstrated how our manufacturing facility incorporates the use of innovative automation to turn locally sourced materials into a finished product.
Having recently improved gas usage and upgraded to Solar and LED, the production facility also features lights off manufacturing and automation, is ISO14001 & ISO9001 certified, uses recycled Bluescope steel, manufactures for disassembly, is free of volatile organic compounds. Planex is the first and only commercial Australian furniture manufacturer to receive AFRDI Green Tick Platinum A-Level Certification for sustainability on high volume products such as our Linea Sliding Door Cabinet and xLocker2 System.
To find out more about Dr Mariano Ramirez’s research and design expertise visit:
https://www.be.unsw.edu.au/staff/dr-mariano-ramirez