Ergonomics-Based Factors or Criteria for the Evaluation of Sustainable Product Manufacturing

Chiuhsiang Joe Lin, Tariku Tamiru Belis and Tsai Chi Kuo
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Chiuhsiang Joe Lin: Department of Industrial Management, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan
Tariku Tamiru Belis: Department of Industrial Management, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan
Tsai Chi Kuo: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taoyuan 32023, Taiwan

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 18, 1-20

Abstract: The issue of sustainability has received substantial attention internationally. It is spreading widely through policy, industry, commerce, research, academia, and other arenas. However, most previous studies on product sustainability were conducted based on a consideration of environmental protection, economic prosperity, and social wellbeing criteria, but there was less representation of specific social wellbeing criteria. The main objective of this study was to formulate well-defined ergonomics-based criteria for product sustainability evaluation and to validate the importance of the identified factors using a fuzzy Delphi method. In this paper, ergonomics-based product sustainability factors are organized by sustainability categories and grouped into employee wellbeing, the economy, and the environment. In the context of manufacturing, evaluating product sustainability from an ergonomics perspective provides more comprehensive social dimension criteria by addressing human characteristics, behavior, performance, human interaction with a product, workplace, working environment, and the product across its life cycle. In addition, a Delphi questionnaire, designed with a nine-point scale, was applied to obtain expert opinions on the importance of each factor; the opinions were combined for each factor by considering the degree of importance assigned to the experts, and the similarities and differences between expert opinions. Finally, high-priority factors were screened from the sustainability categories based on their respective threshold value. Knowing these high-priority factors will help manufacturing industries allocate their resources accordingly for sustainability improvement.

Keywords: sustainability; sustainable product manufacturing; social dimension; ergonomics-based factors; fuzzy Delphi method; product life cycle stages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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