A multi-criteria approach for assessing resilience, sustainability and efficiency measures in manufacturing companies

Abstract

In recent years, manufacturing companies have been increasingly confronted with rising demands relating to their production, uncertain conditions in their environment and volatile markets. To fulfil the diversified customers' demands and rapidly changing markets, manufacturing companies need to achieve and maintain high productivity and quality. This requires fast responses, sufficient flexibility and short lead times. Therefore, flexible, resilient and customer-oriented production processes are becoming more and more important. Current optimization measures of industrial environments focus primarily on increasing efficiency while reducing costs. The reliance on other factors, such as a resilient as well as economically, ecologically and socially sustainable manufacturing system, has not been sufficiently taken into account yet. Bridging the gap between research and practice, this paper proposes a holistic approach that assesses resilience, sustainability and efficiency measures of manufacturing companies. A multi-criteria assessment model is developed to stabilize qualitative and quantitative measures within these dimensions. Furthermore, the model is tested in an Austrian small and medium-sized (SME) enterprise in the wood processing industry. The targeted groups are SMEs and multinational companies.