Chicago, IL, June 10--Sustainable design company Tricycle, Inc. will unveil its online calculator at NeoCon World's Trade Fair.
The environmental calculator is used to predict the reduced environmental impact of using the company's simulated samples in the early rounds of carpet specification.
SIM from Tricycle digitally tufted simulation has won two NeoCon Gold awards and is in use at eighteen commercial and hospitality manufacturers. The customers of these manufacturers, architects and interior designers, are using SIM from Tricycle samples in the early rounds of their specification process.
According to the results of four Tricycle surveys, designers' top two reasons for wanting to use SIM are that its speedcolor-accurate samples and room scenes are delivered within 24 hours of request and its ability to reduce the environmental impact of sampling. The company estimates that it has kept more than 36,000 pounds of carpet samples from landfill in the past year.
Using data compiled from manufacturers, government agencies and industry associations, the environmental calculator estimates savings associated with using Tricycle's digitally manufactured samples in place of physically manufactured samples during initial design decisions.
With one path for architects and interior designers and another for flooring manufacturers, users of the calculator can estimate the amount of oil, energy, and water saved annually, as well as pounds of carpet kept out of landfill.
For example, an interior designer who requests 25 of Tricycle's simulations in place of carpet samples each month saves 66 gallons of oil and 450 lbs of carpet from landfill, per year. If one-third of America's interior designers were to request the same number of digital samples, together they would save 1.9 million gallons of oil, 13.5 million lbs of carpet from landfill, 100.5 billion BTUs of energy, and 38.8 million gallons of water. An interactive demonstration and dialogue will be held at Tricycle's NeoCon booth (8th floor, #4110) on Monday, June 13, at 3:30 p.m.
Manufacturers are also using SIM to cut the costs and time required to launch new products, by simulating prototypes of new designs. Because the carpet is digitally tufted and may be viewed full scale or at full repeat, product development decisions may be made before physical samples are manufactured.
"The carpet industry has made impressive strides in reducing the environmental footprint of manufacturing. The recycled and recyclable floorcovering products offered are great evidence of this progress, and get better every year," said Tricycle president and chief operating officer Jonathan Bragdon. "But little attention has been paid to design waste. With 700,000 samples shipped annually industry-wide, the issue is one that cannot be ignored. With the benefits of Tricycle products and services, design waste in both product development and sampling is simply unnecessary."
