Leveraging manufacturing for a sustainable future

Abstract

Manufacturing offers many opportunities for reducing environmental impact, utilizing resources more efficiently and, overall, greening the technology of production. These opportunities are most often related to process, machine or system improvements that impact only the operation of the process, machine or system. But, there is more potential in manufacturing enhancements to have a larger impact on the life cycle impact of the product the manufactured item is used in. This is referred to as "leveraging" and several examples of this are given, along with definitions of the fundamental terms. The potential for leveraging in manufacturing to have an impact on sustainable manufacturing and some future requirements are described.