A proposed sustainable manufacturing strategy framework

Abstract

Current approaches and initiatives that attempt to address sustainability in manufacturing lack a clear direction on providing informed decisions on key manufacturing decision areas. The challenge lies in embedding sustainability to the usual competitive orientation of manufacturing firms. Thus, this paper proposes a framework in formulating a sustainable manufacturing strategy which is grounded on sustainability without disregarding the internal and external competitive functions of manufacturing. The proposed framework attempts to integrate classical theories on manufacturing strategy and the current demands on sustainable manufacturing in an attempt to formulate a sustainable manufacturing strategy that describes two distinct functions of manufacturing – competitiveness and sustainability. The relevance of the framework lies in its capacity to be quantitatively explored using different tools, such as multi-criteria decision-making methods. Issues and relationships of different components of the framework are presented in this paper. The contribution of this work is on the integration of sustainability and manufacturing strategy into a holistic framework that highlights both the sustainability and the competitive functions of manufacturing.