Investigating Lean Methodology for Energy Efficient Manufacturing

Abstract

Due to the growing globalization and the increasing interest in environmental concerns, together with the changing legal and regulations landscape, manufacturers need to change their approach to competition, enhancing their knowledge of the manufacturing systems and of the network of interconnections among physical flows and management and control information flows, while developing systemic methodologies that enable waste reduction of manufacturing resources usage (such as energy). Furthermore, companies are increasingly involved in managing the environment as an opportunity for competitive advantage, which establishes the need to highlight the relationships between environmental impact of their processes and company strategy and objectives. This paper presents a proposal for a lean methodology, called Transformation Distribution and Utilization (namely, T.D.U.) methodology, which allows future factories to identify Value Added energy usage, paving the way to activities that can reduce the related inefficiencies and wastes. The T.D.U. methodology has been tested in real company, MorseTEC Europe, a supplier of systems for European car manufacturers.

An integrated lean and green approach for improving sustainability performance: a case study of a packaging manufacturing SME in the U.K.

“…something that has caused negative environmental impact to produce, and then paying again for disposal Transportation Unnecessary transportation of materials, goods, and people Emissions Unnecessary paying to create and discharge pollutants on-site, and then being subject to the fines and levies associated with doing this Biodiversity Either directly impacting flora and fauna negatively or overharvesting resources faster than they can regenerate themselves impact resulting out of these activities . Previous researches have provided some variants or extensions of VSM such as green value stream mapping (Wills 2009; Dadashzadeh and Wharton 2012), the energy value stream mapping or EVSM (Mu€ller, Stock, and Schillig 2014;Bush et al 2014), sustainable value stream mapping (Sus-VSM) (Faulkner and Badurdeen 2014) and LCA-integrated VSM (Vinodh et al 2016). While the GVSM visually identifies only the different types of green wastes (as described in Table 2) generated across the process without incorporating any of the lean waste, the Sus-VSM incorporates process metrics such as water, raw material and energy consumption along with societal metrics to capture sustainability performance of the production line (Faulkner and Badurdeen 2014).…”

“…As all defects (589 per year) were moulded back to the recycled polymer and used in manufacturing other components, it generated lowest 'garbage' (scrap) green waste of 3.29 tonnes CO2e, involving only the energy used in the remoulding process. Previous researches using extended VSM such as EVSM have also reported the energy consumed during different processes (Mu€ller, Stock, and Schillig 2014;Bush et al 2014). However, converting all the losses (from material to transportation and energy consumption) in the process to one unit of measurement such as carbon footprint helps in understanding the "carbon hotspot" (i.e.…”

Universal logic assessment for complex product design with respect to smart energy efficient manufacturing characteristics

“…In addition, it should pay full attention to the impact of smart energy efficient manufacturing product characteristics on decision of the overall scheme. 14 Hence, this paper extends scheme evaluation perspective into the layers of the sub-scheme based on the level characteristics of complex product, and comprehensively considers functionality and smart energy efficient manufacturing characterizes. A logical reasoning method is proposed to implement complex product scheme evaluation.…”