A Measurement Infrastructure for Sustainable Manufacturing

5/28/2018 A Measurement Infrastructure for Sustainable Manufacturing

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204 Int. J. Sustainable Manufacturing, Vol. 2, Nos. 2/3, 2011

Copyright 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

A measurement infrastructure for sustainablemanufacturing

Shaw C. Feng* and Che B. Joung

Engineering Laboratory,

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST),

100 Bureau Drive, NIST,

Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263, USA

E-mail: [email protected]

E-mail: [email protected]

*Corresponding author

Abstract: Global resource degradation, climate change, and environmentalpollution are worsening due to increasing globalised industrialisation.Manufacturing industries have thus been put under pressure to cope with theseproblems while maintaining competitiveness. Sustainable manufacturing hasbeen proposed to meet these challenges. The measurement of sustainability inmanufacturing enables the quantitative measure of sustainability performancein specific manufacturing processes that will support decision-makingfor more sustainable processes and products. This paper describes a proposedsustainable manufacturing measurement infrastructure. The centre piece of thisinfrastructure is a sustainability performance management component that willeffectively manage a sustainable indicator repository, measurement processguidelines, and sustainability performance analysis, evaluation, and reporting.The sustainability measurement infrastructure provides a foundation for

decision-making tools development and enables users to create a tightintegration into business strategy development processes. Examples in thispaper are on carbon emissions and energy consumption.

Keywords: sustainable manufacturing; sustainability performance analysis;sustainability measurement.

Referenceto this paper should be made as follows: Feng, S.C. and Joung, C.B.(2011) A measurement infrastructure for sustainable manufacturing, Int. J.Sustainable Manufacturing, Vol. 2, Nos. 2/3, pp.204221.

Biographical notes: Shaw C. Feng is a Mechanical Engineer. He haspublications on systems integration, sustainability measurement, and productlifecycle assessment. He leads the research project on sustainability indicatorsand metrics within the sustainable manufacturing programme at NIST.

Che B. Joung is a Guest Researcher and has publications on design, analysis,and sustainability measurement. His research is on sustainability metricsand measurement infrastructure development. He is responsible for aresearch project on sustainability indicators and metrics within the sustainablemanufacturing programme at NIST.


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A measurement infrastructure for sustainable manufacturing 205

1 Introduction

Manufacturing industries are confronted with a new major challenge in operating

sustainably due to the degradation of energy and natural resources, deterioration of the

global environment, and demand for a higher quality of life. While manufacturing is the

basis of civilisation and provides high quality human living standards, manufacturing is

the main source of consuming natural resources and producing toxic by-products and

wastes. This has forced a number of manufacturing stakeholders to become more

interested in impacts beyond just the financial cost of manufacturing. Consumers are

increasingly interested in the environmental impact of the products they buy. Investors

want to judge how much sound governance that the manufacturing company has for

environmental compliance. Governments and communities are gradually emphasising

corporate social responsibility. With these circumstances, there is a critical need for the

development of sustainable manufacturing processes and products. In this context, theglobal research community has to develop new methods and metrics for sustainable

manufacturing (Bansal, 2005).

The United Nations already defines that sustainable development should meet present

needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs

(Harris et al., 2001). In another view, sustainable development is an organisations ability

to advance its economic state without compromising the natural environment and the

social equity that provide the quality of life for all community residents, present, or

future. Therefore, sustainability is a competitive issue in all manufacturing sectors.

According to the definition from the US Department of Commerce, sustainable

manufacturing is the creation of a manufactured product with processes that have

minimal negative impact on the environment, conserve energy and natural resources, are

safe for employees and communities, and are economically sound (DOC, 2008). This

definition has only manufacturing processes in consideration. Following this definition,

the National Council for Advanced Manufacturing points out that design for

manufacturing should have considerations on the entire lifecycle of a manufactured

product, including the manufacturers economic benefits and the full impact of a product

on the environment and the society (NACFAM, 2011). A revised definition is, hence,

proposed as follows: sustainable manufacturing is the creation of a product that

throughout its entire lifecycle, the product has minimal negative impact on the

environment, conserves energy and natural resources, is safe for human beings, and is

economically sound for both producer and consumer.

The Organization for Economic Corporation and Development (OECD), one of the

leading organisations promoting sustainable manufacturing, recently asserted several

forward-looking activities (OECD, 2009). One of them is to develop sustainability

indicators, performance metrics, and analysis software toolsets to help businessesbenchmark performance and improve their production processes and products.

Additionally, the American small manufacturers coalition (ASMC) identified a critical

thread to US manufacturing that sustainability measurement systems are inadequately

deployed in its June 11, 2009 news letter. Thus, a measurement infrastructure is a critical

need to enable sustainable manufacturing.


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206 S.C. Feng and C.B. Joung

To realise sustainable manufacturing, companies must have a sustainability

measurement methodology. In this paper, an effort to develop a measurementinfrastructure for sustainable manufacturing is introduced. The rest of the paper is

organised as follows. Section 2 presents a study of the status on sustainable indicators

and metrics development. Section 3 provides an overview of the proposed infrastructure

for measuring sustainability performance. Section 4 describes an example to measure

performance using two indicators. Examples are on CO2 emissions and energy

consumption. Other sustainability issues, such as eco-toxic substance emissions and raw

material consumptions, are as important as CO2 emission and energy sustainability.

Section 5 summarises the current development work and future directions.

2 Current state in sustainability indicators development

The analysis of sustainability of an organisation is often a combination of three major

dimensions: environment, society, and economy (Antonio et al., 2007). Other major

dimensions exist, such as performance management. Sustainability measurement for

decision-making has been difficult to ascertain due to the many indicators available that

represent a dimension or a combination of dimensions. Furthermore, in simplifying these

indicators and in providing a holistic view of sustainability, a single multi-dimensional

sustainability measure is often the goal of measurement. A single multi-dimensional

sustainability measure is, in general, difficult to achieve because the dimensions are

interrelated in a complex way (Kibira et al., 2009). Each major dimension consists of

many sub-dimensions. Measurement units amongst these sub-dimensions are different

and make aggregation into a single sustainability measure with a common unit difficult.

Moreover, indicator set developers often normalise and associate weights on some of the

sub-dimensions to aggregate. Weighing a sub-dimension is subjective and prone to

inconsistency. Even with these difficulties, there have been many within-company or

international attempts to measure and analyse sustainability performance with composite

indices or individual indicator sets. The functions of these indices and sets have included

reporting numbers to stakeholders and assessing sustainability performance in products

and manufacturing processes for company management, while others have been

developed for sector-specific sustainability performance assessments. Table 1 shows a

matrix of source names, numbers of indicators, types, and purposes of some available

indices and indicator sets. Two major indicator types, shown in the third column, are

individual and composite. An overview of each is given below:

Global reporting initiative (GRI) indicator set (GRI, 2006): the GRI is a voluntary

initiative. The GRI reporting mechanism has an organisation of defined indicators.They are in two major categories: core and additional. The indicators are functionally

grouped in three dimensions: economy, environment, and society. A reporting

organisation, such as a manufacturing company, reports actual numbers in individual

indicators. Using the report, that organisations sustainability performance according

to GRI can be analysed and tracked. The purpose of the analysis and tracking is for

decision-making at multiple levels of the organisation, such as management,

operation, and internal or external stakeholders (Staniskis and Arbaciauskas, 2009).

Dow Jones sustainability indexes (DJSI) indicator set (SAM Indexes, 2007):the DJSI is used to assess the financial and sustainability performance of the top 10%


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of the companies in the Dow Jones global total stock market index. The assessment

is performed by means of questionnaire, as well as media and stakeholder analyses.The results from the assessment evaluate the performance of a company in

12 criteria, covering the economic, environmental, and social dimensions.

Companies must meet all 12 criteria to be included in DJSI.

Environmental sustainability index (ESI, 2005) and environmental performanceindex (EPI, 2010) indicator sets: both the ESI and EPI focus on evaluating

environmental stewardship. The 2005 ESI and 2010 EPI were developed by the

Yale Centre for Environmental Law and Policy. The ESI provides a way to estimate

overall sustainability performance of countries. The ESI and EPI are one-value

indices. The ESI has six policy categories and 21 core factors, which are aggregated

from a set of 68 basic indicators. An ESI value for one economy is simply the

average value from the values of 21 factors. A calculated value is then normalised on

a scale from 0 (low sustainability) to 100 (high sustainability). The EPI has

19 indices and complements the ESI by assessing the policy performance of

countries in reducing environmental stresses on human health, enhancing ecosystem

vitality and sustainable natural resource management.

Indicators of sustainable development (ISD) indicator set (UNCSD, 2007): the ISDwas developed by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development

(UNUSD) and is used to assess the degree of sustainable development of a country

or region. The latest version of ISD was finalised in 2006 and contains 96 indicators,

of which 50 are considered core indicators. The indicators are categorised by

14 themes that account for the economic, social, and environmental health of

developing countries.

OECD core environmental indicators (OECD CEIs, 2003): the CEIs were designedfor monitoring environmental conditions and trends of member countries. The CEI

includes 46 indicators, which address a range of environmental, social, and economic

issues. The framework developed by OECD in assessing the environmental progress

of countries implements a Pressure-State-Response model that identifies the pressure

indicators, which stress the environment. The resulting environmental impacts from

these pressures produce a current state of the environment defined by state

indicators. Reaction to reduce such impacts can then be seen through response

indictors.

Ford product sustainability index (PSI) (Schmidt and Taylor, 2006): Fords PSIconsiders sustainable indicators within the environmental, economic, and societal

dimensions that are specifically relevant to automobile manufacturing and services.

Because of the specialisation, Fords PSI only considers eight indicators: mobilitycapability, life cycle ownership costs, the life cycle impact on global warming, the

life cycle impact on air quality, sustainable materials, restricted substances

management, safety, and drive-by-noise. Scoring of the sustainable performance for

an automobile is done by comparing the best in industry vehiclescore for each

indicator.

General Motors metrics for sustainable manufacturing (Dreher et al., 2009): thesemetrics were developed by a project of General Motors (GM) that reviewed the state

of the art of metrics for sustainable manufacturing. The goal of the project was to


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determine which metrics for sustainable manufacturing should be recommended for

implementation. Based on the project work, GM recommended over 30 metricsunder six major categories: environmental impact, energy consumption, personal

health, occupational safety, waste management, and manufacturing costs. For

sustainable manufacturing improvement, GM compares current metric performance

with that of industry leaders and adjusts their organisation accordingly.

International standard ISO14031 indicator set (ISO, 1999): the ISO 14031 is aninternational standard, which contains specifications for companies to develop their

own indicators for Environmental Performance Evaluation (EPE). Environmental

performance indicators are in three categories:

1 operational performance, which forms the basis of evaluation of environmental

aspects

2 management performance, which indicates the environmental protection effortsand report results achieved in regards to influencing its environmental

management performance

3 environmental condition, which indicates the quality of the surrounding

environment. ISO14031 has 155 informative indicators under these three

categories.

Wal-mart sustainable product index (Wal-mart SPI, 2009): the Wal-mart sustainableproduct index is still being developed. The intent of the index is to provide Wal-mart

suppliers and Wal-mart with a worldwide sustainable product index. Current

development of the index has focused on a 15-question survey to suppliers that

emphasises the environmental issues with production. The company expects to help

customers to make purchase decisions and to encourage suppliers to meet

sustainability requirements. Unlike others, no technical detail has yet becomeavailable.

Environmental pressure indicators for European Union (EU-EPI) (European Union,1999): the EU-EPI is the result of the environmental pressure indices project, which

aims to provide the EU with a comprehensive description of the most important

human activities that have a negative impact on the environment. The EU-EPI

contains 60 indicators that overview the pressure of human activities on the

environment in ten policy fields including air pollution, climate change, loss of

bio-diversity, marine environment and coastal zones, ozone layer depletion, resource

depletion, dispersion of toxic substances, urban environmental problems, waste, and

water pollution and water resources. All 60 indicators were chosen based on the

preference of a scientific advisory group, which has consisted of over

2,300 scientists and engineers for the 15 countries then within the European Union.

Eco-indicator 99 indicator set (Pre Consultants, 2004): the Eco-Indicator 99 is adamage-oriented methodology, which is a life cycle assessment (LCA) weighting

method specially developed for product design. A single valued damage indicator is

derived based on the algorithmic approach of the Eco-Indicator 99 system and

accounts for three main damages: mineral and fossil resources, ecosystem quality,

and human health. The Eco-Indicator 99 has been a tool used by engineers in

environmentally sustainable product design.


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Table 1 Various sustainability indicators and metrics

Indicator setNumber ofindicators

Type Purpose

Global report initiative (GRI) 70 Indicators Individualindicators

Sustainability reportguidelines

Dow Jones sustainabilityindexes (DJSI)

12 criteria-basedindex

Compositeindicators

Corporate sustainabilityindex for investmentfirms

Environmental sustainabilityindex

68 Indicators Compositeindices

Gauge of nationalenvironmentalstewardship

Environment performanceindex

19 Indices Compositeindices

Index of nationalenvironmental protection

resultsUNCSD indicators ofsustainable development

96 Indicators Individualindicators

Indicators of nationalsustainable development

OECD core environmentalindicators


Indicators of nationalenvironmental policyperformance towardsustainable development

Ford product sustainabilityindex

8 Indicators Compositeindices

LCA-based productsustainability index

GM metrics for sustainablemanufacturing

30 Metrics Individualindicators

Metrics of sustainablemanufacturing in GM

ISO 14031 environmentalperformance evaluation

155 Exampleindicators

Individualindicators

Guidance on the designand use of environmental

performance evaluationwithin an organisation

Wal-mart sustainable productindex

15 Questions Individualindicators

Sustainable product indexfor suppliers

European Unionenvironmental pressureindicators


Indicators ofcomprehensiveenvironmental pressureby human activities

Eco-Indicators 99 3 Mainfactor-based

single indicator

Compositeindices

Lifecycle impactassessment of a product

The OECD has developed a categorisation method based on a survey of how companies

organise different data and measurements in order to understand the sustainabilityperformance in their manufacturing processes, products, and services (OECD, 2010).

Most indicator sets, such as ISO14031, UN CSD and OECD CEI, belong to individual

indicator sets. An individual indicator setis a simple group of indicators that collectively

measure sustainability. An example of an individual indicator set is a group of basic

indicators such as CO2 emissions, CH4 emission, N2O emission, and green house gas

concentration. Each indicator in the set is independent and benchmarked respectively. A

composite indicator/indexis the synthesis of groups of individual indicators, expressing

the whole phenomenon of sustainability or a single dimension of sustainability as one

through a limited number of indices. Some indicator sets, such as 2005 ESI and


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2010 EPI, are sets of composite indices for the environmental dimension of sustainability.

These composite indices are especially effective when companies want to provide a largeamount of information into a simple readable format for management or external

stakeholders.

Of all the indicator sets and indices discussed, the main issue is their focus on the

external reporting for stakeholders, rather than on internal information needed for

decision-making or for innovation. In this context, manufacturers need a sustainability

measurement infrastructure for sustainable manufacturing, with which they could

evaluate and track the sustainability performance in their products and processes.

3 Sustainability performance measurement infrastructure

The sustainability measurement infrastructure we propose includes four majorcomponents: the sustainability performance management (SPM) component, the

sustainable indicator repository (SIR) component, the sustainability measurement process

guidelines (SMPG) component, and the sustainability performance analysis, evaluation,

and reporting (SPAER) component. Figure 1 shows these four components and their

inter-relationships. The component in the centre is the SPM component. It manages a

multi-dimensional indicator set stored in the SIR by providing several functions, such as

requirements for updating the indicator set, versioning control, and ensuring consistency

with measurement process guidelines and the reporting function. The SPM also provides

requirements for managing the SMPG component. Further, the SPM sets preconditions

for the generation of internal and external reports, based on the functions within the

SPAER component.

Figure 1 Key components of sustainability measurement infrastructure (see online versionfor colours)


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3.1 Sustainable indicator repository

The sustainability indicator repository contains all the necessary sector-specific

multi-dimensional indicators. The indicators in the repository specify how to

measure sustainability in manufacturing and form the basis of metrics for

sustainability performance benchmarking within eco-innovative product development

and manufacturing process planning strategies. Sustainability indicators in the repository

have been and will be continuously adapted from other developed sets (see Table 1).

Other indicators will be developed in a standardised manner, such as those specified in

ISO 14301. Adapted or developed indicators will generally have the following

characteristics [partially from Sustainable Measures (2009) and Moss and Grunkemeyer

(2007)]:

Measurable: an indicator must be capable of being measured quantitatively or

qualitatively in multi-dimensional perspectives, e.g., economic, social,environmental, technical, and performance management.

Relevant: an indicator must show useful meaning on the manufacturing processesunder evaluation. It must fit the purpose of measuring performance.

Understandable: an indicator should be easy to understand by the community,especially, for those who are not experts.

Reliable/usable: information provided by an indicator should be trusted and useful.Reliable measurement is necessary.

Data accessible: an indicator must be based on accessible data. The informationneeds to be available or easily gathered when necessary.

Timely manner: measurement for an indicator must take place with the frequency toenable timely, informative decision-making.

Long term-oriented: An indicator must be compatible with an open standard tosupport long-term archival needs for future generations.

Based on these characteristics, indicators will be managed within the repository. Every

indicator will have the following attributes:

indicator name is a name given to the adopted or developed indicator

identification (ID) is a unique logical name or number to identify an indicator

measurement type indicates whether the indicator is quantitative or qualitative

unit of measure is the unit of the value for the indicator

references of each adopted or developed indicator to identify from which existingindicator set(s) or specific indicator(s) that the indicator is adopted or developed

application level defines the organisational level(s) that the indicator is applied. Withthis information, policymakers or decision makers in the organisation can set up their

own sustainability metrics based on their business strategies.


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3.2 Sustainability measurement process guidelines

SMPG in the SMPG component are defined as a sequence of operations in which the

necessary instruments and tools are used to determine the value of an indicator for a

specific purpose. The main purpose is for internal decision-making and external

accountability reporting; therefore, the sustainability measurement process must contain

the information concerning measurement operations and associated instruments, target

value(s), related object and indicator(s) according to the application level of the indicator

and business strategies.

As mentioned in Section 2, an organisation can track sustainability performance using

the following two distinct approaches: the individual indicator(s) approach and the

composite index approach. The former approach provides an easy way to track and

improve the sustainability performance according to specific needs. The latter approach

provides a holistic way to track and improve the performance based on theirsustainability goals. The composite index approach needs aggregating methods,

normalising methods, and weighting algorithms to combine different unit-based

indicators into a single index (Singh et al., 2009). Hence, a sustainability measurement

operator must have a full understanding of the measurement process guidelines to

interpret the value and assign a reasonable uncertainty to that value of an index.

Fiksel et al. (1999) emphasised four sustainability measurement principles, which can

help enterprises address the challenges associated with measuring and reporting

sustainability:

1 resource and value

2 triple bottom line

3 product life cycle consideration

4 leading and lagging indicators.

They pointed out that the sustainability performance measurement process usually

involves three phases structure, i.e., plan, implement, and review. One of the main

requisites of sustainability measurement is that every indicator is obtained by standard-

based measurement methods, procedures, instrument certifications, and reference

materials in a tightly integrated manner with business operations throughout the product

life cycle. In this context, several guidelines should be set up for the measuring process

within this infrastructure including:

measurement operation sequence has to be logical and traceable so that it can be

repeatable and comparable in time dependent product life cycle

measurement instruments (data collectors) must be certified and calibrated instandard manner for the robustness

sources and the magnitudes of measurement errors must be explicitly expressed

expression of measurement uncertainty needs to conform to open standards.


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3.3 Sustainability performance analysis, evaluation, and reporting

In measuring sustainability performance, metrics are usually applied. Sustainability

metrics are a set of measurements, corresponding to indicators that are used to evaluate

the sustainability performance of an organisation. Based on timely measured results,

manufacturing companies can analyse and evaluate their sustainability performance,

observe the trend of sustainability, and perform sustainability accounting. Figure 2 shows

an example of time tracking of some metrics with respect to a targeted benchmark value.

Time-dependent evaluations of indicators enable engineers and managers to see the trend

of specific metrics and the gap to the target at a given time. This information guides them

to analyse sustainability and make appropriate decisions for eco-innovation in product

development. In analysis, effective indicators allow engineers and designers to focus on

specific areas of interest during the design process. Other metrics, namely lumped

metrics, provide a holistic view of the sustainability of an organisation and may serve as akey benchmark for reporting, but can fail to capture the competing drivers in the system,

thus limiting the ability of engineers and designers to accurately analyse the process.

Finally, the quality and impact of engineering design must also be understood within this

component as they are closely related to design of the metrics used in the analysis and

will affect the evaluation of the measurement process (Reich-Weiser et al., 2008).

Figure 2 Tracking performance (see online version for colours)

Using the results from measurement processes, engineers can not only report but also

make necessary decisions for their business operations, such as redesign. The

performance evaluation might be done in multiple passes with adequate analysis tools. A

typical example of internal communication purposed evaluation is for the indicators to

have a relation with their confidential business information, like manufacturing cost. In

this case, existing practices, like enterprise resource planning or design for six-sigma

(Bras, 2008), can be good tools for internal performance analysis and reporting. On the

other hand, some indicators like enterprise-based green house gas emissions or

CO2-emissions are for typical external communication indicators. In this case, the GRI


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can be a good tool for external communications. One challenge to make meaningful

communication with internal and external stakeholders is how to serve various audienceswith different information needs. Business strategy and sustainability communication and

reporting should, therefore, be linked with sustainability performance evaluation and

management. To make this happen, sustainability information and communication should

be treated in the same manner as strategic planning and accounting (Schaltegger and

Wagner, 2006).

Consequently, all the developed and adapted indicators must have associations with

standard measurement methodologies and instruments throughout the product life cycle.

Engineers or designers can hence track the sustainability performance with indicators via

standard-based repeatable measurement methods with the expression of measurement

uncertainty (ISO, 1993). Furthermore, they will be able to access measured metrics via

various design analysis tools, and use the results in their decision-making processes for

product innovation and communications with a diverse group of stakeholders.

4 Case study: CO2emission

To make eco-friendly products, it is necessary to reduce the CO2 emission in

manufacturing individual components in an assembly. Product developers, including

manufacturing process engineers, need effective indicators to evaluate the CO2emission

and energy use in production. Using a CO2-emission indicator with a set of given

measurement process guidelines, engineers can calculate the quantity represented by the

indicator. With the results from the calculations, they can make a decision on the

sustainability of the design and planned process with respect to the CO2emission and

energy efficiency. This section gives an example of an assembly of machined parts

(Ameta et al., 2009) in Figure 3. This assembly consists of three parts: A, B, and C. A

and B are machined parts, and C is a purchased part from a supplier. In this case study,

CO2emission in the machining parts is assumed to be directly related to the energy used

in the machining operations. Figure 4 schematically shows the machining operations that

are applied to A and B within the organisation of the company.

Figure 3 A machined subassembly (see online version for colours)

Source: Ameta et al. (2009)


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Figure 4 Manufacturing process of the selected subassembly example (see online version

for colours)

4.1 Carbon emission and energy metrics

In this case study, two indicators from the repository are used to analyse the CO2

emission and energy use in machining operations (Ameta et al., 2009). The names of theindicators are carbon weight of machining operation and energy use by machining

operation. The IDs are CW_MO and EU_MO respectively. The measurement type of

these two indicators is quantitative. In the EU_MO indicator, energy used by a machining

operation, E [J], is calculated by two different ways: direct measurement of cutting

parameters and estimation by using appropriate mathematical cutting models. The

measured EU_MO is calculated by the following equation:

( ) ( )( ) ( ) ( )( )( )1

0

t

t

E E F t F t v t v t dt = (1)

Fis the cutting force [N],Fis the estimated force deviation, vis the cutting speed [m/s],

vis the estimated cutting speed deviation, Eis the estimated cutting energy deviation, t[s] is the time of machining, t0 is the starting time, and t1 is the end time. For

simplification in calculating EU_MO, only the energy used in the machining operations

is considered. Energy used by auxiliary operations such as warming up, pumping, and

cooling are ignored. All the machining operation parameters such as cutting force and

cutting speed can easily be gathered from the machine tool controller. To estimate the

machining energy in the part design stage, engineers generally use the specific energy per

unit time (Kalpakjian, 1995). The specific energy is the energy used per unit time

required to remove a unit of volume of a given material. By obtaining the total removal

volume, machining energy is estimated using the following equation:


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r tE V u= (2)

Vr is the volume to be removed, and ut is specific energy per unit time. Based on the

above calculation, the carbon weight (CW) of the machining operations can be computed

by the following equation1:

( )CW CW f E E = (3)

CW is the estimated carbon weight deviation, parameter f is a conversion factor fortransformation energy to carbon weight, which can be found in a report from the energy

information administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy (DOE) (EIA, 2002).

According to the EIA report, the value off is 1.72 104g/J in the state of Maryland.

4.2 Energy measurement process

In the above-mentioned EU_MO calculation procedure, the volume to be machined can

be calculated using a three-dimensional solid model in a computer-aided design (CAD)

system. On the other hand, in the real-time data collection, EU_MO should be calculated

using machiningparameterslike machining force, machining speed, and machining time.

In general, the data of these parameters can be collected from an advanced machine

controller or measured by appropriate instruments in real time. Data collection can be

prone to error, so measurement uncertainty has to be managed and estimated in

association with the measured value. Based on the measured value and the expression of

measurement uncertainty, equation (1) can be approximated by the following equation

with a sample time of t:

( ) ( )1

( ) ( ) ( ) ( )

n

i i i i

iE E F t F t v t v t t

= =

(4)

In this case study, all parameters are assumed to come from an automated monitoring

system, which is connected to the machine controller and able to publish the real-time

machining parameters of the machine centre to the workshop floor engineers via network.

With this automated system, repeatability of the measurement can be easily obtained,

provided the system is monitored, maintained, and calibrated as scheduled.

4.3 Analysis, evaluation, and reporting in an organisation

The analysis of sustainability performance is the first part of reporting. Analysis methods,

such as using equations (1) or (4) above, have to be documented in the sustainability

report to provide traceability. Analysis results, as shown in Table 2, must also be a part ofthe report. Furthermore, the EU_MO indicator can be used in various evaluations. On the

machining side, the CW_MO indicator can provide guidance on the CO2emission of a

machining centre, such that engineers can decide which machine centre is the best choice

in terms of minimum CO2 emission and energy consumption. Engineers can also

establish the history of performance of a machine tool and rank all the machine tools that

they have. It can give historic information to the process planners and maintenance

personnel. On product design, the EU_MO indicator can be used as an input in redesign.

A company needs to establish their own analysis and evaluation practices in using

indicators to measure performance.


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Table 2 Analysis of indicators at component process level

Parameters

Indicators

Given

Measured

Energyused

Carbonweight

Part

Operation

Volumetobe

removedVr

(mm

3)

Surface

speedv

(m/s)

ForceF

(N

)

Operation

timet(s)

E(J)

E(J)

CW(Kg)

CW(Kg)

MO1-1

291,546.28

3.112

742

5

294.64

679,922.64

4,581.72

1.17098

0.007891

MO1-2

26,116.47

4.262

204

4

61.21

53,194.32

1,042.92

0.09161

0.001796

MO1-3

17,002.84

3.451

78

2

268.48

72,248.40

1,852.56

0.12443

0.003191

A

MO1-4

22,114.4

1.831

40

2

402.08

29,432.52

1,471.68

0.05069

0.002535

MO2-1

265,660.96

3.072

743

5

268.48

612,410.40

4,121.28

1.05471

0.007098

MO2-2

106,804.03

4.12

221

5

250.32

226,816.92

5,131.44

0.39063

0.008838

MO2-3

51,346.46

3.162

36

3

236.98

26,958.96

2,246.76

0.04643

0.003869

MO2-4

17,002.84

3.331

74

2

268.48

66,159.36

1,788.12

0.11394

0.003080

B

MO2-5

23,722.72

1.831

56

2

402.08

41,205.60

1,471.68

0.07097

0.002535


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Reporting the value of an indicator can come from various levels in an organisation. At

an assembly level, the CO2emission and the energy consumption are aggregations fromvalues at the component level. In this case, the value of an individual EU_MO indicator

at the assembly level is a result of the energy consumption in all the machining

operations. For a given process plan of Part A and Part B, the calculated results can be

found in Table 2, where the data are calculated using the equation (4) with a number of

datasets from a specific machine centre, and total product-level carbon weight is a

summation of carbon weights of all the parts. In general, engineers can evaluate

sustainability performance at any level of an organisation, from the machine tool level to

the factory level.

5 Summary and future work

There are many sustainability indicator sets available. Most of them are designed to

address sustainability issues at a global, regional, or company level. Very few of them

directly address environmental, economic, and social sustainability performance at the

manufacturing process level. This paper introduces the development of an information

infrastructure for sustainability performance measurement and management for

manufacturing processes and manufactured products. The infrastructure consists of four

main components:

1 sustainability indicator repository

2 SMPG

3 SPAER

4 SPM.

The SPM is the central piece of the proposed infrastructure. It manages the development

and expansion of the indicator repository, updates the measurement process guidelines,

and relates data collected from measurement processes to functions of analysis and

evaluation to generate relevant sustainability reports. An assembly of machined parts is

used for the case study in the context of CO2 emission reduction in a manufacturing

company. In this case study, the process of how a given indicator can be defined and used

to guide the evaluation of the sustainability performance in a machining process is shown

along with the aggregation of indicator values throughout different levels in an

organisation.

The future work includes developing a testbed and measurement process guidelineson more cases. The testbed is to provide a facility for examining the sustainability

measurement methodologies including the proposed sustainability measurement

infrastructure. The implementation of guidelines will provide precision and traceability

for measuring the sustainability in products and manufacturing processes.


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Disclaimer

No approval or endorsement of any commercial products by the National Institute of

Standards and Technology (NIST) is intended or implied. Certain company names are

identified in this paper to facilitate understanding. Such identification does not imply that

their products are necessarily the best available for the purpose of sustainability.

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Notes

1 We did not take account of carbon emission signature (CES). If CES were added, equation (2)would be replaced by CW=ECES(see Jeswiet and Kara, 2008).

A Measurement Infrastructure for Sustainable Manufacturing

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