Development of an Extended Product Lifecycle Management through Service Oriented Architecture.

Organised by: Cranfield UniversityThe aim of this work is to define new business opportunities through the concept of Extended Product Lifecycle Management (ExtPLM), analysing its potential implementation within a Service Oriented Architecture. ExtPLM merges the concepts of Extended Product, Avatar and PLM. It aims at allowing a closer interaction between enterprises and their customers, who are integrated in all phases of the life cycle, creating new technical functionalities and services, improving both the practical (e.g. improving usage, improving safety, allowing predictive maintenance) and the emotional side (e.g. extreme customization) of the product.Mori Seiki – The Machine Tool Company; BAE Systems; S4T – Support Service Solutions: Strategy and Transitio

Development of Distributed Manufacturing Systems (DMS) concept

Nowadays, Manufacturing enterprises in mature economies are facing a challenge how to grow on the long-term, while coping with the increasing competitive pressure of low-labour cost countries. To achieve a long-term success, manufacturers have to effectively and efficiently meet both policy makers constraints and the customers requirement, those are asking for a more environmentally and social sustainable production. Distributed Manufacturing Systems (DMS) appear to be as one of the possible answer. Consequently, they are gaining more and more attention among academic debates as well as in the manufacturing world. A multitude of models with different peculiarities have been proposed under this denomination throughout the last decades, thus resulting in an increased confusion about the concept of DMS. For this reason, this paper aims at identifying the evolution of the DMS concept by applying a systematic literature review and classification of different DMS framework presented in the scientific literature. From this study emerges that DMS models evolved from the 80s, where they were identified as a decentralized form of production control, to 00s, where they have been identified alternatively as a geographical distributed manufacturing systems and as an enterprises network

Key Competencies for Circular Manufacturing

The transition towards circular economy represents a major challenge faced by manufacturing companies and society alike. One key enabler of this transition is the availability of a skilled workforce, as new competencies are needed for the adoption and implementation of circular strategies, processes and practices (Jabbour et al., 2019, Bertassini et al., 2021, Marrucci et al., 2021). However, the ‘human side’ of the circular economy and the role of people-driven factors are still underrepresented in the research literature (Mies and Gold, 2021; Walker et al., 2021). The present study aims at contributing to fill this gap and supporting manufacturing stakeholders by identifying and describing key competencies for circular manufacturing.Design/methodology/approach – To achieve the above.mentioned objective, a review of the scientific and grey literature was carried out as first step. Subsequently, key competencies were validated by means of semi-structured interviews with experts from manufacturing companies and academia.Results – Seventeen key circular manufacturing competencies were identified. Technical-managerial competencies refer to those competencies enabling the main processes and activities characterizing circular manufacturing (e.g., Design and management of multiple product-service life cycles, Development and use of digital solutions as an enabling factor for the circular economy, etc.). Transversal competencies are key knowledge, skills and attitudes linked to lifelong learning, creativity, teamwork, taking initiative and responsibility. (Janssens et al., 2021).Originality/value – The present study contributes to ongoing research about circular economy by shedding light on key competencies for circular manufacturing. They can also be useful for practitioners willing to identify the skills required for circular strategies and practices, to update or create new job profiles, to check the competency level of employees and then activate training, counselling and improvement programs to fill the gap

Development of an LCA-based tool to assess the environmental sustainability level of cosmetics products

The depletion of natural resources and the downgrading of the environment, driven by globalization and consumerism phenomena, are worldwide pushing the interest in sustainable manufacturing paradigm and environment preservation. It is moreover clear to academia and practitioners that the cosmetics industry needs to update its current operations to face new sustainable requirements and norms due to its ever-growing size and massive consumption of natural resources. Different methodologies, metrics, and indicators have been and are being proposed for solving the complex issues of environmental sustainability evaluation of cosmetics processes and products.MethodsAmong these approaches and methods, product-related assessment tools (e.g., life cycle assessment) are usually more focused on the environmental dimension of sustainability, and they are always based on the life cycle of the product. The core of this paper is on the development of a novel tool to classify cosmetics products based on the results of LCA: the eco-friendliness assessment tool (EFAT). The methodology of the work is structured into 5 main phases: definition of the scientific background of the work, definition of the tool requirements, tool development, testing of the tool, analysis of the results. The eco-friendliness assessment tool proposed is structured into two main parts: (i) process flow 1: environmental impact score and (ii) process flow 2: supplier environmental sustainability assessment.ResultsThe tool has been tested on a cosmetics product manufactured in a cosmetics company located in Italy. The acquisition of raw material process and primary packaging process are the two most critical processes resulting from the impact analysis of LCA methodology. The application of the EFAT tool shows the two possible most sustainable improved scenarios are as follows: (i) exploiting transportation of the primary packaging by sea and (ii) adopting the European location of the primary packaging supplier. The results coming from the tool application allowed the definition of the company product eco-friendliness. The eco-friendliness is symbolized by an alphabetical letter and a color.ConclusionsThe paper proposes a practical tool to assess the environmental sustainability level of cosmetics products, with the intention to overcome two of the main literature gaps found in the state of the art: (i) absence of LCA methodology implementation in the cosmetics industry on makeup products, (ii) absence of tools that rely on the results of the LCA analysis of a cosmetic product for understanding its sustainability level of sustainability

Enhancing the cosmetics industry sustainability through a renewed sustainable supplier selection model

The cosmetics industry requires a long-term sustainable strategy to balance its continuously growing trend worldwide and its resources consumption. In this view, the suppliers' selection process is gaining more attention affecting products' overall sustainability. The objective of this contribution is hence to develop and validate the Cosmetics Sustainable Supplier Selection (C-SSS) model allowing the selection of sustainable suppliers for the cosmetic industry, evaluating them in an objective and balanced manner. The model was built relying on both scientific and grey literature, by incorporating the characteristics of existing SSS models usually used separately. The C-SSS enabled to integrate the EMM approach (to reduce the subjectivity), the ANP approach (to evaluate criteria interconnections), and the TOPSIS and ELECTRE models (to create a hybrid compensation model) to support managers in objectively selecting the most sustainable suppliers. The C-SSS model was applied and validated through an industrial use case in a cosmetics Italian company

Additive Manufacturing as an opportunity for supporting sustainability through the implementation of circular economies

As changes are automatic while progress is not, technology improvements in manufacture need to find their room within market requirements. Among the challenges manufacturers have to face with, there is the need to approach a multifaceted context. Additive Manufacturing is considered one of the most effective technology with the potential to give proper industry-side responses to markets, fulfilling a long-term sustainable perspective. Layered fabrication may lead to structural changes both in economics and societies and may fill the missing tie to foster the spread of circular systems towards the realization of effective circular economies. There is a widespread interest for manufacturing to shift from linear to circular systems, where biological and technical saves are possible. This paper thus aims to frame Additive Manufacturing, one of the most game-changing technology of nowadays societies, into the need and characteristics of Circular Economy concept, one of the most challenging change in human progress

Industrial Services Reference Model

Organised by: Cranfield UniversityThe need to integrate service providers into an existing customer supply chain requires the collective know-how of the coordination mode, including the ability to synchronize interdependent processes, to integrate information systems and to cope with distributed learning. About this topic the EU-funded InCoCo-S project is developing a new standard business reference model with key focus on operation & integration of business related services in supply chains. Based on the requirement analysis concrete business processes have been developed to integrate services in the existing customer supply chain both on a strategic and operational level.Mori Seiki – The Machine Tool Compan

Analysis of information systems as empowering tools in Circular Manufacturing

Circular Economy (CE) adoption, especially in manufacturing, is gaining momentum thanks to its potentials in enhancing environmental, social and economic sustainability of this sector. In this context, CE is also named as Circular Manufacturing (CM), and by relying on several strategies it allows to reduce resource consumption and to extend their lifecycle towards lowering the greenhouse gases emissions too. The adoption of CM, among all, requires managerial, organizational, and technological changes and supports. In particular, in the scientific literature, researchers underlined the relevant role that digital technologies, spanning from Industry 4.0-related technologies to software and information systems, have in the implementation of CM with a special attention on data. Although this general awareness is present, in the scientific literature is still scarce research dealing with information systems usage to empower manufacturing companies in embracing CM. Therefore, the present contribution, based on both scientific and grey literature, aims to structure the extant contributions by elucidating which information systems can support CM adoption, by underling their role in respect to the specific CM strategy embraced by the company and the potential benefits obtained. In particular, the present contribution shows which information systems can be used for the advancements of the manufacturing companies’ daily activities covering the aspects characterizing CM without being limited to economic benefits only. As a conclusive remark, this research not only aims to cover a research gap, but it empowers practitioners creating awareness about the importance of technological investments to keep high their companies’ competitive advantage including CE values in their strategic plans

Circular economy in the manufacturing sector as enabler of sustainable manufacturing

The role of manufacturers for our society is gaining importance more and more, and currently the manufacturing is considered one of the most polluting and resource greedy sectors. The inefficiencies registered in manufacturing boost the uncontrollable rise of resources consumption and the rise of CO2 emissions, which nowadays represent two of the major problems affecting the society. To tackle these issues, policymakers have promoted the sustainable developed goals (SDG) and, both industry and scientific literature have started to investigate the potentialities of sustainable manufacturing to address this goals. More recently the attention has been moved over a new economy, called “circular economy” (CE). This paradigm, characterised by specific principles, aims to design systems allowing the regeneration and restoration of resources. The present work aims to elucidate how CE paradigm operates as driver of sustainable manufacturing through the adoption by manufacturers of different CE strategies. Indeed, this contribution presents how the CE principles have been translated in the manufacturing context through specific strategies, by highlighting their economic, environmental and social potentialities to embrace the SDGs. Understanding what are the applicable CE strategies and their sustainable potentialities would facilitate the transition towards circular industries by making manufacturers more aware of the possible paths to be undertaken and related benefits. This paper is based on a literature review, grounded on English-written documents available on Scopus and Web of Science. Moreover, this review, on the basis of the scientific literature gaps, paves the way for future research directions