Sustainable Value Stream Mapping (Sus-VSM): methodology to visualize and assess manufacturing sustainability performance

Abstract

Sustainable manufacturing, which involves the use of sustainable processes and systems to produce more sustainable products, is becoming increasingly important. One natural starting point for innovation and developing better strategies for sustainable manufacturing is to examine currently used best practices and how they can be adapted to meet the sustainability requirements. Lean manufacturing practices are being increasingly assessed and used as a catalyst to develop better strategies for green and sustainable manufacturing. In this regard, the potential of extending Value Stream Mapping, an important technique used in lean manufacturing to identify environmental and societal impacts/waste has received attention. A vast majority of these efforts have focused on adding energy-related metrics to Value Stream Maps while several other studies refer to ‘sustainable’ Value Stream Mapping, but limit emphasis to only environmental performance; the societal sustainability assessment as well as visualization methods to present the information in Value Stream Mapping are not addressed. This paper presents a comprehensive methodology to develop Sustainable Value Stream Mapping by identifying suitable metrics and methods to visually present them. The approach is validated through the application to an industry case study and opportunities for further improvement are discussed.