Growing environmental concerns caused by natural resource depletion and pollution need to be addressed. One approach to these problems is Sustainable Development, a key concept for our society to meet present as well as future needs worldwide. Manufacturing clearly has a major role to play in the move towards a more sustainable society. However it appears that basic principles of environmental sustainability are not systematically applied, with practice tending to focus on local improvements. The aim of the work presented in this paper is to adopt a more holistic view of the factory unit to enable opportunities for wider improvement. This research analyses environmental principles and industrial practice to develop a conceptual manufacturing ecosystem model as a foundation to improve environmental performance. The model developed focuses on material, energy and waste flows to better understand the interactions between manufacturing operations, supporting facilities and surrounding buildings. The research was conducted in three steps: (1) existing concepts and models for industrial sustainability were reviewed and environmental practices in manufacturing were collected and analysed; (2) gaps in knowledge and practice were identified; (3) the outcome is a manufacturing ecosystem model based on industrial ecology (IE). This conceptual model has novelty in detailing IE application at factory level and integrating all resource flows. The work is a base on which to build quantitative modelling tools to seek integrated solutions for lower resource input, higher resource productivity, fewer wastes and emissions, and lower operating cost within the boundary of a factory unit.

Sustainable manufacturing appears to be a rapidly developing field and it would be expected that there is a growing body of knowledge in this area. Initial examination of the literature shows evidence of sustainable work in the areas of product design, supply chain, production technology and waste avoidance activities. Manufacturers publish metrics showing significant improvements in environmental performance at high level but information on how these improvements are achieved is sparse. Examining peer reviewed publications focused on production operations there are few cases reporting details and there has been little prior analysis of published sustainable manufacturing activity. Moreover, the mismatch between academic and practitioner language leads to challenges in interpretation. This paper captures and analyses the types of sustainable manufacturing activities through literature review. In turn this can help manufacturers to access examples of good practice and help academics identify areas for future research.

No abstract

The increasing pressure on material availability, energy prices as well as emerging environmental legislation is leading manufacturers to adopt solutions to reduce their material and energy consumption as well as their carbon footprint, thereby becoming more sustainable. Ultimately manufacturers could potentially become zero carbon by having zero net energy demand and zero waste across the supply chain. Literature on zero carbon manufacturing, and the technologies that underpin it, is growing but there is little available on how a manufacturer undertakes the transition. Additionally, the work in this area is fragmented and clustered around technologies rather than around processes that link the technologies together. There is a need to better understand material, energy and waste process flows in a manufacturing facility from a holistic viewpoint. With knowledge of the potential flows, design methodologies can be developed to enable zero carbon manufacturing facility creation. This paper explores the challenges faced when attempting to design a zero carbon manufacturing facility. A broad scope is adopted from legislation to technology and from low waste to consuming waste. A generic material, energy and waste flow model is developed and presented to show the material, energy and waste inputs and outputs for the manufacturing system and the supporting facility and, importantly, how they can potentially interact. Finally the application of the flow model in industrial applications is demonstrated to select appropriate technologies and configure them in an integrated way.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Abstract. The suitability of age forming for the shaping of damage tolerant structures is investigated by formulating and testing new alloy-age forming combinations. The alloy formulation process is driven initially by modelling of strength and semi-quantitative understanding of other microstructure-property relations. Using this a range of Al-Cu-Mg-Li-(Zr-Mn) based alloys predicted to provide yield strengths in aged condition comparable with incumbent 2024-T351 alloy for lower wing skins are selected. It is shown that several of these new alloys after artificial aging representative of age-forming have proof strength (PS), fatigue crack growth resistance (FCGR) and toughness that are comparable or better than 2024-T351. UTS to PS ratios of the new alloys are lower than 2024-T351.