A study on evaluation of environmental effectiveness of manufacturing processes

Abstract

To achieve sustainable society, many efforts in reducing environmental impact of manufacturing have been tried. However, since the quality is the most important issue, it is necessary to take manufacturing quality into account in evaluating environmental effectiveness of a manufacturing process. For the purpose, we have proposed a new index to evaluate products and manufacturing processes named "total performance indicator (TPI)." TPI shows a balance of manufacturing quality versus environmental impact and cost. The bottleneck process in enhancing product quality can be clarified, by calculating TPI of each process. This paper analyses an actual product and allocates quality characteristics to functional requirements of the product. Then, it quantifies the contribution of each process in creating the product value. A process which doesn't contribute much in creating value and generates considerable environmental impact and cost, should be improved. It is shown that a designer can evaluate and redesign manufacturing processes, based on the result of this approach. © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2009.