Measuring the Sustainability of a Manufacturing Process: A Conceptual Framework

Wagner Lucato,Athos Pacchini,José Santos

doi:10.3390/su10010081

Abstract

Recently, besides recurrent financial gains, industries have been required to boost their environmental and social performance to fulfil the demands of several stakeholders. Moreover, the need to measure the sustainability of manufacturing processes is recognized because the production and operations managers need to know how they are contributing to the triple bottom line of their respective companies. To do that, many initiatives have been developed although all of them face some limitations: (a) they are only appropriate for the company as a whole, which makes their application for a manufacturing process difficult; (b) they consider the measures for sustainability (economic, environmental and social) as separate variables with no integration among them, which could become a methodological difficulty in case indicators move in different directions; or (c) they are too complicated to be used as a practical tool on the factory floor. Hence, this study proposes a framework to evaluate the sustainability level of a manufacturing process, integrating the economic, environmental, and social variables into a single combined measure. A case study exemplifies how the proposed procedure can be applied in real-world situations.

Highlights

In the last few decades, sustainability has been the focus of intense discussions due to the vital role of the manufacturing activities in value creation in national economies and their environmental and social impacts [1]
Let us assume that the economic aspects associated with a given manufacturing process “P” are represented by a set of “n” financial variables designated by f1, f2, f3,..., fn
This machining centre had an operational problem; the company reported that the number of lost hours due to accidents was significantly higher than in similar machines operated in the same environment

Summary

Introduction

In the last few decades, sustainability has been the focus of intense discussions due to the vital role of the manufacturing activities in value creation in national economies and their environmental and social impacts [1]. The quest for sustainability involves environmental and social gains, and the pursuit of improved economic performance [5,6,7]. In line with this concept, Garetti and Taisch [8] define sustainable manufacturing as the capacity to use natural resources in such a way that the economic, environmental, and social aspects are attained, minimizing the adverse impacts of industrial operations on the environment. Manufacturing companies are expected to include the three aspects of sustainability (economic, environmental, and social) as part of their strategies and activities, establishing a dynamic balance among them [9,10]. The initiatives most commonly observed in the literature and in practice are detailed in the following paragraphs

Methods

Results

Conclusion