Material efficiency: a key sustainable manufacturing strategy

Abstract

Inefficient material utilization results in extra pressure on the environment for the extraction of more material to meet production demand and therefore makes the environment unsustainable. The survival of the manufacturing industry depends on its ability to balance several requirements to meet up with dynamic market demand particularly materials for production ranging from raw materials, intermediate materials to spare components for maintenance. In the past, sustainability and efficiency were no challenges to the manufacturers and material extraction from the environment was always below replenishment. Presently, the reverse is the case where the demand for production material has become incessant and surpasses supply on account of increasing population and modern manufacturing practices thereby resulting in irresponsible exploitation of raw material. This paper aims to evaluate the current efforts in the topic area to gain insight into the impact of material efficiency on the manufacturing performance concerning other manufacturing strategies alongside the environment. It appears from the review that the balance between manufacturing material extraction from the environment and the replenishment rate determines the sustainability of both the manufacturing system and the environment. Hence material efficiency is an index for sustainable manufacturing strategy. We recommend the future research direction to looks into the development and determination of balance between manufacturing material extraction from the environment and the replenishment rate for a sustainable future manufacturing.