A Novel Approach towards Sustainability Assessment in Manufacturing and Stakeholder’s Role

Aamir Rasheed and William Ion
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Aamir Rasheed: Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management, University of Strathclyde Glasgow, Glasgow G1 1XQ, UK
William Ion: Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management, University of Strathclyde Glasgow, Glasgow G1 1XQ, UK

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 6, 1-21

Abstract: With increasing consumer awareness about sustainability and governmental policies to address environmental challenges and social responsibility, the manufacturing sector is under continuous pressure to adopt more sustainable practices. Trends show that factories of the future (FOF) will need to adapt to market demands, growing economic and ecological efficiency requirements, and corporate social responsibility; such versatility is vital to address consumer disquiet and sustainability expectations. Various approaches have been proposed to assess sustainability over the last few decades. Most of these approaches have limitations in that they are of marginal relevance to the manufacturing environment, tend to focus on only one aspect of sustainability, or are too complicated for most organisations to implement. Moreover, numerous studies have demonstrated a gap in sustainability expectations among various stakeholders, and no active mechanisms exist to prioritise sustainability in manufacturing. This paper introduced a novel approach to address both the manufacturer and multiple stakeholders’ expectations about sustainability prioritisations in manufacturing practices. It achieved this using a modified quality function deployment (QFD) tool along with AHP and normalisation techniques. A set of system boundaries was adopted to evaluate sustainability in the manufacturing context; this research was a ‘Gate to Gate’ border. These indicators and a score-based approach will help organisations better grasp how manufacturing operations interact with sustainability and decision-making. They will help lead to improvements in the allocation of corporate resources used to manage and improve sustainability performance in manufacturing.

Keywords: sustainability; FOF; QFD; AHP; manufacturing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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