Validation of Sustainability Benchmarking Tool in the Context of Value-Added Wood Products Manufacturing Activities

Cagatay Tasdemir,Rado Gazo

doi:10.3390/su11082361

Abstract

The primary objective of this study was to validate the sustainability benchmarking tool (SBT) framework proposed by the authors in a previous study. The SBT framework is focused on benchmarking triple bottom line (TBL) sustainability through exhaustive use of lean, six-sigma, and life cycle assessment (LCA). During the validation, sustainability performance of a value-added wood products’ production line was assessed and improved through deployment of the SBT framework. Strengths and weaknesses of the system were identified within the scope of the bronze frontier maturity level of the framework and tackled through a six-step analytical and quantitative reasoning methodology. The secondary objective of the study was to document how value-added wood products industries can take advantage of natural properties of wood to become frontiers of sustainability innovation. In the end, true sustainability performance of the target facility was improved by 2.37 base points, while economic and environmental performance was increased from being a system weakness to achieving an acceptable index score benchmark of 8.41 and system strength level of 9.31, respectively. The social sustainability score increased by 2.02 base points as a function of a better gender bias ratio. The financial performance of the system improved from a 33% loss to 46.23% profit in the post-improvement state. Reductions in CO2 emissions (55.16%), energy consumption (50.31%), solid waste generation (72.03%), non-value-added-time (89.30%), and cost performance (64.77%) were other significant achievements of the study. In the end, the SBT framework was successfully validated at the facility level, and the target facility evolved into a leaner, cleaner, and more responsible version of itself. This study empirically documents how synergies between lean, sustainability, six-sigma and life cycle assessment concepts outweigh their divergences and demonstrates the viability of the SBT framework.

Highlights

Ongoing resource scarcity, climate change, and economic stability concerns accompanied by world population projections create a necessity to take decisive actions for generating effective and timely solutions to sustainability problems
New policy decisions by management involved net green area impact (NGAI) and gender bias ratio (GBR) neutralization, reduction of net energy footprint by at least 25% as a starting point through usage avoidance or production optimization, reduction of defect rate (DR) by 90%, increasing rolling throughput yield to an acceptable level that approximates the pre-identified acceptable benchmark of 50%, achieving at least a 10.69% profit level, which is the industry average for
The sustainability benchmarking tool (SBT) framework succeeded in delivering empirical proof that synergies between the lean philosophy, triple bottom line sustainability, six-sigma quality control, and the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology outperformed the divergences among them and could be used to measure true sustainability

Summary

Introduction

Climate change, and economic stability concerns accompanied by world population projections create a necessity to take decisive actions for generating effective and timely solutions to sustainability problems This makes sustainability one of the main drivers of the latest innovation wave. Increased job satisfaction of employees due to increased social sustainability within the walls of their work area was documented [7] Considering all these primary and secondary benefits of achieving a certain level of sustainability, one could conclude that no effort dedicated to ensuring, achieving, or maintaining sustainability at any level is wasted. Theoretical and conceptual tools and frameworks to assess and benchmark the sustainability level of various organizations across all business sectors [8] are being developed. The first publication provides descriptive and contextual analysis on lean-driven sustainability and previously-proposed frameworks [8], while the second study explains the theoretical and conceptual details of the sustainability benchmarking tool framework [9]

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Conclusion