Sustainability characterisation for manufacturing processes

Abstract

Manufacturing industries lack the measurement science and the needed information base to measure and effectively compare environmental performances of manufacturing processes, across resources and associated services with respect to sustainability. The current use of ad hoc methods and tools to assess and describe sustainability of manufactured products does not necessarily account for manufacturing processes explicitly, and hence results in inaccurate and ambiguous comparisons. Such comparisons do not proactively contribute to sustainability improvement. Further, we identified that there are no formal methods for acquiring and exchanging information that help establish a consolidated sustainability information base. Our ultimate goal is to develop the needed measurement science and methodology to evaluate sustainability of fundamental manufacturing processes to ensure reliable and consistent comparisons. As a precursor, based on a literature study, this paper identifies the required elements to evaluate sustainability performance for manufacturing with a focus on the environmental impact. Societal and economic impacts, although equally important, are beyond the scope of discussion in this paper. In this paper, we first discuss identified manufacturing process classifications, sustainable manufacturing indicators and computable metrics, relevant information models and software tools, a conceptual model for sustainability characterisation, and finally, conclude with an overview of the future research directions.

Methods and Tools for Performance Assurance of Smart Manufacturing Systems

“…The sustainability of operations of a manufacturer can be improved directly through operational process change, if the state of sustainability performance could be assessed. Process level assessment requires methods and tools for modeling the operation of the production process to analyze the inputs, transformation process, outputs, and its environmental impacts such as energy consumption [130,131]. Such methods use manufacturing data associated with material and manufacturing process to quantify the inputs, outputs, and by-products.…”

Quick Green Scan: A Methodology for Improving Green Performance in Terms of Manufacturing Processes

“…In addition, there is a lack of a science-based methodology to describe specific manufacturing processes to generate inventory [16] data in a unified manner for whole manufacturing companies.…”

A conceptual model of a sustainable system based upon observations of biodegradable plastic packaging film experiments and material flow

“…Shuaib et al [57] forwarded a Product Sustainability Assessment (PSA) that included the 6Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, redesign and remanufacture) and TBL over four life cycle stages (pre-manufacturing, manufacturing, use and post-use) and called it ProdSI. Mani et al [50] used LCA to assess the sustainability of manufacturing processes using only the environmental impacts, with social and economic ones being outside the scope of the work. The fact that it is only environmental impacts that are considered makes the claim to a sustainability assessment disputable.…”

“…When several RTP systems are linked together, as illustrated in Figure 7.10, the similarity to LCA appears [42,[48][49][50]. In fact, if the process systems are defined for matter and energy transformations, the model is quite identical to a system definition that is suitable for applying the Eco-indicator 95 [51] and Eco-indicator 99 [53] LCA tools and deriving the various impacts for effects such as greenhouse effect or acidification.…”

“…Also, referred to as life cycle analysis, LCA is a methodological tool used to quantitatively analyze the ecological impact of products in four distinct phases [48][49][50]:…”