Benchmarking Holistic Optimization Potentials in the manufacturing Industry – A Concept to Derive Specific Sustainability Recommendations for Companies

Abstract

A decoupling of resource use and productivity increase is essential for a transition to sustainable production. However, most companies are not able to assess to what extent they can improve their production sites. In order to facilitate sustainable manufacturing within companies, the holistic vision of an Ultra-Efficiency Factory was defined by the five fields of action material, energy, emissions, human/staff and organization. As of yet, missing guidelines for comparing the sustainability performance of companies impede the identification of critical aspects and potential improvements. Even sustainability reports of companies are rarely comparable due to different scopes and references of published KPIs. This paper thus presents the development of a sector-specific benchmark using the Ultra-Efficiency framework. The selected indicators are partially recommended by GRI and other reporting standards. In order to cover all five fields of action, the indicator set is extended with further relevant KPIs. The developed benchmarking framework is supposed to enable a comparison of companies within the industry sectors food processing, automotive, mechanical engineering and electronics. As a result, critical fields of action as well as recommendations for improvement are identified. The development of the described benchmark is comprised of the initial formulation of the concept, its validation in four companies, the identification of specific recommendations and its adaption according to the company feedbacks (e.g. applicability, suitability, data availability). The validated concept will be spread widely via different media and thus may serve as the new standard for future holistic optimization in the German manufacturing industry.