Environmental Aspects in Value Stream Mapping: A Literature Review and Future Directions

Abstract

Although Lean Manufacturing has becoming an important theme of research, the connection between Lean and Green on the supply chain is still a topic recently studied. The main objective of this research is to identify methods used in order to identify wastes in Lean and Green areas and also discuss the synergies and differences between all methodologies available in current literature. This chapter is constructed to address four primary issues: (i) Collect research on databases and categorize the main articles already published; (ii) Understand the most significant journals, contributing authors, and relevant articles commonly cited; (iii) Analyse results and contributions from each article and comment on a relationship between the articles; and (iv) Reach conclusions that direct the focus to future research. Studies were elicited from significant research databases. 19 articles were chosen as most relevant, and we observed that almost 50% of the articles were published within the last three years (2014-2016). As main results we can highlight that the methods for deployment of Lean and Green philosophies need to be spread across the industries. The US Toolkit is the most used methodology, and Sus-VSM methodology appears to be the latest, trendiest topic. The majority of Lean and Green researchers on the supply chain do not use VSM techniques for systematic waste elimination; instead, waste searching and elimination is done without a specific methodology. During this research, we identified some essential points for Environmental VSM techniques, including the importance of connection with other methodologies/policies and the importance of establishing correct indicators. The main indicators found were: Energy consumption (kwh), Water Consumption (kg or litters), Raw material consumption (kg), emissions (kg or kg CO2) and garbage (kg). Beyond that, case studies need to pursue wider and deeper applications that technically show the improvements and benefits of using sustainable VSM. Practitioners of Lean Manufacturing need to add environmental tools into their research on supply chains, because utilizing such tools can lead companies to reach their environmental goals and can improve society to more effectively use resources.