the benefits of human centred design in industrial practices re design of workstations in pipe industry

Abstract Sustainable Manufacturing (SM) traditionally focused on optimization of environmental and economic aspects, by neglecting the human performance. However, the industrial plant's costs, productivity and process quality highly depend on the individual human performance (e.g., comfort perceived, physical and mental workload, simplicity of actions, personal satisfaction) and how much hazardous positions and uncomfortable tasks finally cost to the company. The present paper defines a human-centred virtual simulation environment to optimize physical ergonomics in workstation design and demonstrates its benefits on an industrial case study in pipe industry. The proposed environment aims at overcoming traditional approaches, where analysis are carried out at the shop-floor when the plant is already created, by providing a virtual environment to easily test and verify different design solutions to optimize physical, cognitive and organizational ergonomics

Prerequisites for a high-level framework to design sustainable plants in the e-waste supply chain

Currently few attempts to properly structure knowledge that specifically supports a fully sustainable e-waste treatment system design have been proposed in literature. As a result, this paper sets up the prerequisites for a high-level framework to design sustainable plants in the supply chain of e-waste. The framework addresses production and environmental engineers mainly. The methodology grows out of literature studies, research project’s outcomes and interviews with a group of sector experts. Stemming from this, a list of prerequisites was presented for the case study of an automated plant for e-waste sorting in order to design it while considering the triple-bottom-line of sustainability

Comparative analysis of waste reduction methods for sustainable manufacturing systems using concurrent triangulation model

The aim of this study is to carry out a comparative analysis of waste reduction methods for sustainable manufacturing systems using Cronbach alpha and concurrent triangulation model. The objective of this research is to establish an ideal sustainable manufacturing waste disposal method. Reliability test results showed that the Cronbach alpha values used to measure the internal consistency of responses recorded for recycling, reuse, reduce, remanufacture and landfilling were 0.8160 , 0.8100 , 0.7760 , 0.7550 and 0.7340 respectively with recycling recording the highest internal consistency. The concurrent triangulation model recorded results showed that recycling recorded a total of 184 respondents at the highest percentage of 51.11 %, reuse recorded a total of 58 respondents with 16.13 %, remanufacture recorded 43 respondents at 11.94%, reduce recorded a total of 38 respondents at 10.55 %, and Landfilling had 37 respondents with 10.27 %. Hence Recycling was selected as the most appropriate method. Keywords: Concurrent Triangulation model, cronbach alpha, Recycling, Reuse, Remanufacturing, Sustainable manufacturing system

virtual maintenance simulation for socially sustainable serviceability

Abstract In order to achieve more sustainable development processes, industries need not only to improve energy efficiency and reduce costs, but also to increase the operators' wellbeing to promote social sustainability. In this context, the present research focuses on the definition of a methodology based on human-centred virtual simulation to improve the social sustainability of maintenance tasks by enhancing system design and improving its serviceability. It is based on the operators' involvement and the analysis of their needs from the early design stages on virtual mock-ups. The methodology proposed merges a protocol analysis for human factors assessment and an immersive virtual simulation where immersive serviceability simulations can be used during design phases. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, an industrial use case has been carried out in collaboration with CNH Industrial

Startup Methodology for Production Flow Simulation Projects Assessing Environmental Sustainability

Environmental impact assessments for companies and products are important to increase sales and reduce environmental impact. To support improvements and detailed analyses, researchers have extended the use of simulation of production flows to include sustainability performance indicators. The research cases performed until recently lack standardized methodology and thus have comparability issues and an increase number of common faults. By using a common methodology and gathering best practice, future cases can gain a lot. Especially noted by the authors is that the project startup phase is critical for success. This paper proposes a methodology to support the startup phases of simulation projects with sustainability aspects in production flows. The methodology is developed and applied in an automotive industry study presented in this paper. Using a rigid project startup, such as the proposed methodology, reduces iterations during modeling and data collection and decreases time spent on modeling

Synthesis of Manufacturing and Facility Data for Sustainability Analysis

This paper discusses data synthesis of production and facility knowledge for sustainability analysis by applying the ISA 95 "Activity Models of Manufacturing Operations Management" (MOM) model. Presently, production and facility management are "silo" operations, which basically function independently of each other. This paper presents the addition of facility activities to the MOM model, in accordance with the needs for attaining a holistic view of sustainability analysis. Historically, production and facility data are represented in various forms, e.g., data bases, CAD, and spreadsheets, without a common unifying representation. This paper addresses the issue by introduced Core Manufacturing Simulation Data (CMSD) Standard. A case study of the data synthesis for a precision sand casting production facility is provided

An investigation into modeling and simulation approaches for sustainable operations management

Modeling and simulation (M&S) studies have been widely used in industry to gain insights into existing or proposed systems of interest. The majority of these studies focus on productivity-related measures to evaluate systems' performance. This paradigm, however, needs to be shifted to cope with the advent of sustainability, as it is increasingly becoming an important issue in the managerial and the organizational agendas. The application of M&S to evaluate the often-competing metrics associated with sustainable operations management (SOM) is likely to be a challenge. The aim of this review is to investigate the underlying characteristics of SOM that lend towards modeling of production and service systems, and further to present an informed discussion on the suitability of specific modeling techniques in meeting the competing metrics for SOM. The triple bottom line, which is a widely used concept in sustainability and includes environmental, social, and economic aspects, is used as a benchmark for assessing this. Findings from our research suggest that a hybrid (combined) M&S approach could be an appropriate method for SOM analysis; however, it has its challenges.This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors