Introducing Sustainability Early into Manufacturing Process Planning

Published

May 7, 2008

Author(s)

Mahesh Mani, Kevin W. Lyons, Sudarsan Rachuri, Eswaran Subrahmanian, Ram D. Sriram

Abstract

In response to the global trend towards implementing sustainable manufacturing practices, we put forth an exploratory approach that uses energy monitoring as a means to introduce sustainability criteria early into manufacturing process planning and scheduling. Typically cost, quality and time are the indices for manufacturability assessment in generating manufacturing process plans. In this paper, we propose the idea of introducing sustainability to complement cost, quality and time to arrive at alternate sustainable plans or schedules in identified manufacturing processes. To be sustainable, it is pertinent that manufacturing firms understand the energy consumption of different manufacturing equipment used to produce products. This will enable industry to implement energy reduction processes in a more effective manner and pave the way for improved and alternate manufacturing solutions. The paper presents the potential utility of energy usage readings in the interest of continuing dialogue and collaboration.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Manufacturing Science and Engineering, ASME

Conference Dates

October 7-10, 2008

Conference Location

Evanston, IL

Pub Type

Conferences

Download Paper

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Keywords

sustainability index, manufacturing, energy mapping, efficiency, process planning, scheduling

Citation

Mani, M. , Lyons, K. , Rachuri, S. , Subrahmanian, E. and Sriram, R. (2008), Introducing Sustainability Early into Manufacturing Process Planning, Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Manufacturing Science and Engineering, ASME, Evanston, IL, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=824645 (Accessed October 13, 2025)