Abstract
With increasing consumer awareness about sustainability and governmental policies to address environmental challenges and social responsibility, the manufacturing sector is under continuous pressure to adopt more sustainable practices. Trends show that factories of the future (FOF) will need to adapt to market demands, growing economic and ecological efficiency requirements, and corporate social responsibility; such versatility is vital to address consumer disquiet and sustainability expectations. Various approaches have been proposed to assess sustainability over the last few decades. Most of these approaches have limitations in that they are of marginal relevance to the manufacturing environment, tend to focus on only one aspect of sustainability, or are too complicated for most organisations to implement. Moreover, numerous studies have demonstrated a gap in sustainability expectations among various stakeholders, and no active mechanisms exist to prioritise sustainability in manufacturing. This paper introduced a novel approach to address both the manufacturer and multiple stakeholders’ expectations about sustainability prioritisations in manufacturing practices. It achieved this using a modified quality function deployment (QFD) tool along with AHP and normalisation techniques. A set of system boundaries was adopted to evaluate sustainability in the manufacturing context; this research was a ‘Gate to Gate’ border. These indicators and a score-based approach will help organisations better grasp how manufacturing operations interact with sustainability and decision-making. They will help lead to improvements in the allocation of corporate resources used to manage and improve sustainability performance in manufacturing.
Highlights
Accepted: 27 February 2022The article introduces a new sustainability assessment approach in manufacturing using the modified quality function deployment (QFD) tool and accounts for stakeholders’ roles
The environmental factor is one of the elements in the supply chain. It plays an essential role in determining its impact on firms and its bearing on supply chain operations [8]. These societal forces are concerned with sustainability performance, which protects the environment and biodiversity and creates a better workplace and social life for employees and people involved in the supply chain
A comparative study of different sustainability sustainability’s other critical aspects, such as social, research and development, and perapproaches found that most were environment-focused and did not address sustainabilformance management. It was identified through literature review and analysis of ity’s other critical aspects, such as social, research and development, and performance different sustainability assessment in the review manufacturing context lacking in management
Summary
The article introduces a new sustainability assessment approach in manufacturing using the modified QFD tool and accounts for stakeholders’ roles. There is the realisation that multiple stakeholders, mainly manufacturers and consumers, prioritise sustainability elements differently, such as Consumers want societal issues on the top of the agenda and 22.9% weightage whereas manufacturers consider 8% in their prioritisation list; a split exist on the environmental and resource utilisation elements [4]. This argument advocates that a holistic approach should adopt manufacturers to gauge multiple stakeholders’ prioritisation and use organisation resources inaccurately. The approach appraisal was made with researchers, industry experts, and senior management in a manufacturing company regarding the applicability, usefulness, and relevance to the manufacturing environment
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
