SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING

PROCESS & ITS EFFECTS

Prof A N Mullick
National Institute of Technology Durgapur
Conventional Manufacturing

Sustainable Manufacturing

Difference between Conventional & Sustainable Manufacturing

• Sustainable Manufacturing emphasis the adaptation of the practices that will

influence the product design, process design and operation principles at the
same time minimizing the negative impact on the environment.
What is Sustainable Manufacturing:

Sustainable Manufacturing is the creation of manufactured products through most economical

processes that minimize negative impact on environmental while conserving energy and natural
resources. Sustainable Manufacturing also enhances employee, community and product safety.
(According to US Department of Commerce 2009)

Sustainable Manufacturing is one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) set by UN in 2015,
which defines manufacturing as one of the measures toward sustainable development. While
manufacturing has negative impact on the environment, it also creates jobs and has a positive
contribution to the population’s need for food, shelter, healthcare, as well as needs for comfort and
decent level of life.

The need for Sustainable Manufacturing:

Sustainable Manufacturing can also be very cost-effective. By improving the efficiency of the
machineries and processes,
• the lower energy consumption,
• reduce production cycle time,
• minimize the waste, and
• use of optimum material
all of which can provide significant cost savings can be done by Sustainable Manufacturing.
Foundation of Sustainable Development
Close Loop Material Flow – The 6R Concept
Evaluation of Sustainable Manufacturing
Evaluation of Manufacturing Strategies
Technological Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Manufacturing
Parameters that include ‘potential to decrease’ in
Sustainable Manufacturing
Parameters that include ‘potential to enhance’ in Sustainable Manufacturing
In manufacturing process, value is generated through activities and interactions
between suppliers, manufacturers, customers and other stake holders. However, when
it comes to sustainable value creation, the economic, environmental as well as societal
impacts on all stakeholders must also be considered.

Some of the key strategic capabilities identified by industry experts to enable broader
and rapid implementation of sustainable manufacturing practices are

• Sustainable manufacturing education and workforce development

- an educated and sustainability-aware workforce will enhance corporate
knowledge and support innovation, a key requirement for sustainability. Thus to enable
innovation and technology development, education and workforce development
efforts must focus on the 3Rs (Recruit, Reeducate and Retain) of education life cycle of
the personnel to meet the knowledge and skills requirement.

• Next generation decision support toolset

- there is a need for interoperable decision support toolsets for total lifecycle
sustainability assessment early in the product development cycle. The use of integrated
decision support tools that integrate innovations at the product, process and system
levels, providing access to data from all life cycle stages can evaluate the total lifecycle
sustainability effects.
• Risk, uncertainty and unintended consequences for supply networks
- to enhance value creation through sustainable manufacturing and increase
resilience against catastrophic events, risk models with real-time visibility and
intelligence for risk identification, assessment, avoidance and mitigation are necessary.
By establishing continuous visibility of supply chain risk area and implementing
mitigation measure, companies can meet customer requirements and achieve
profitability and sustainability.

• Lifecycle cost models

- better life cycle cost models enable more accurate prediction of costs and
optimization of product and process attributes for creating the total lifecycles value: it
can also deliver better products at lower cost. Total lifecycle cost model will also provide
business value by reducing the risk of unanticipated cost escalation, particularly
relevant in cases when there is extended producer responsibility for products.

• 6R focussed end-of-life management

- improved and pervasive end-of-life planning offers the opportunity to reduce
environmental impact, save energy and maximize the total lifecycle value of the
product. The 6R concept offers a great foundation for instilling end-of-life planning in
the development process.
• Flexible and scalable manufacturing alternatives
- to enhance sustainability performance, the next level of evolution for
manufacturing must be flexible and scalable system that produce products at most
beneficial location, utilizing the best available resources, methods and equipment to
provide dramatic cost reduction, increased productivity and sustainability advantages.
Implementing flexible and scalable manufacturing practices, such as through the
integration of Reconfigurable Manufacturing system capabilities to enable 6R based
closed loop material flow, will allow companies to reduce risk and meet quality when
meeting customer needs.

• Sustainable manufacturing metrics

- better sustainable manufacturing metrics and measurement frameworks will
enable a more definitive assessment of the impact of sustainability initiatives on
competitive position and identification of areas of focus. Metrics can also help evaluate
long term vs. short term benefits sustainability initiatives to help make decisions that
will be strategic importance to create business and sustainable value.
Vision for Sustainable Product, Process and System
 Innovative Approaches in Sustainable Manufacturing

The goal of innovative approaches is protecting resources against inappropriate usage.

• Remanufacturing is one of the innovative approaches that reprocess a product

after its life cycle. Product remanufacturing depends on some factors like product
life time, rate of technical innovation and failure rate of components.

• Reuse is the other technique that reduces sales of new product and increase profit
for seller simultaneously. Researches indicate that reuse has benefits for the
organization not only for legislation or ethical accountability but also in brand
protection, customer orientation and securing spare parts supply and warranty.

• Refurbishing is the other prevalent techniques that improve used product

conditions to definite quality. Refurbishing operations change outdated parts with
new spares and upgrade parts with new spares and upgrade products to the new
one.

• Recycling is the easiest innovative approach for sustainable manufacturing.

Recycling engages with collecting and de-manufacturing operations when the
product is at the end of its life.
• Redesign in reverse logistics aids in terms of reduction of energy
consumption and improvement of design to adopt with green manufacturing
terms and conditions. Remanufacturing, reuse, repair, refurbish, recycle and
redesign are called 6Rs in reverse logistics.

Sustainability in the general point of view relates to innovation and

development.

The main challenge for manufacturing is to design products and processes that
meet the demands of the environment. Thus manufacturing has to be innovative
to produce products and processes that enable the 6Rs to be implemented, right
form the beginning a product is conceived.
Thank You