Manufacturing facility location and sustainability: A literature review and research agenda.

Abstract

(Jan Olhager), [email protected] (Ou Keywords: Corporate social responsibility (CSR), Environment, Facility location, Manufacturing, Sustainability 2 Introduction The facility location problem has been around for a long time. In general, it concerns the geographical positioning of facilities for a specific organizational entity, such as a company. As such, it is a strategic decision related to the configuration of the manufacturing network. As competition becomes global and the complexity of the environment in which companies operate is increasing, managing an integrated international network has become an increasingly important task for managers 1995) and Procter & Gamble ( The literature on facility location can be broadly classified into two areas: factor assessment and mathematical approaches. The factor assessment approach often has a focus on strategic issues in decision making and it can be generalized into four steps: (i) establish the critical success factors of the business, (ii) assess options for regional manufacturing configurations, (iii) define a number of potential sites, and (iv) rank the most suitable solutions (Reid and Sanders, 2010). Implicitly, economic performance has been the driver for selecting critical success factors. Also, the mathematical approaches are typically formulated as cost minimization and profit maximization problems; cf. e.g. Consequently, it is becoming increasingly necessary for manufacturing firms to include all aspects and dimensions of sustainability in their manufacturing facility location decisions. Even when a facility is selected locally, there is need to integrate sustainability factors to reach economic, social, and environmental benefits from local innovation and collaboration with local customers and suppliers The research literature on the combination of manufacturing facility location and sustainability is still at an early stage but growing. We first present an overview of the literature review methodology. We then present the search strategy and the classification scheme, based on a content analysis. Then, the results of the literature review are presented. Finally, we present a conceptual framework and a research agenda. Methodology The core idea with a literature review is to summarize the state of the art in the subject field, Below we discuss the key steps in conducting the literature review, in terms of (i) the search strategy, and the content analysis in terms of (ii) literature over time, (iii) literature across journals, and (iv) categorization with respect to topical areas as well as research methodologies; cf

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