The design of a sustainable manufacturing system: A case study of its importance to product variety manufacturing

R.Jayachandran*, S.Singh, J.Goodyer, K.Popplewell

Department of Manufacturing and Management, Coventry University, Coventry, CV1 5FB, UK

Abstract A key challenge for manufacturers is to not only design but manufacture products using a sustainable approach. Manufacturing industries have started recognising that it is their responsibility to design a sustainable manufacturing system which has less environmental impact and social disruptions and promotes wealth. This paper presents a case for adapting current manufacturing system design methods to include environmental issues. A case study is presented which uses an environmental process selection method to demonstrate how companies can transform into sustainable practices in a large product variety environment. One of the key results is that the technology capability and economic risk are the two main factors which prevent a company to adopt sustainable manufacturing. Keywords: Manufacturing system, product variety, process selection.

1. Introduction In terms of sustainable development, manufacturing industry is often cited as a source for environmental degradation and social problems, but it is the major source of wealth generation [1]. According to the Lowell Centre for Sustainable Production, sustainable production is defined as the creation of goods and services using processes and systems that are non-polluting, conserving of energy and natural resources, economically viable, safe and healthful for employees, communities, consumers and socially and creatively rewarding for all working people [2]. Sustainable development consists of three

structural pillars namely society, environment and economy, whilst at the same time it also involves operational aspects such as consumption of resources, natural environment, economic performance, workers, products, social justice and community development. The concept of sustainable production emerged at the United Nations conference on environment and development in 1992; the conference concluded that the major source for environmental degradation is unsustainable production and consumption patterns [2]. Although the concept of sustainable development was developed in the last decade, most manufacturing

Corresponding author: Tel: +44-2476-88-7088, Fax: +44-2476-88-8272 E-mail address: *J.Ramakumar@coventry.ac.uk, singhs7@coventry.ac.uk

Process selection Capacity planning Equipment selection and design Facility design

Material handling systems Integrated supply chain People

Fig. 1. Manufacturing system design key stages.

companies are still looking for improving environmental performance in their activities. The last two decades of environmental consciousness focused on end of pipe solutions i.e. reducing the amount of hazardous emissions and substances after manufacturing [3]. The focus has shifted from controlling emissions to elimination or prevention at source, which is a proactive approach. Firms adopting a proactive approach consider the environmental challenge as a competitive business opportunity rather than as an obstacle. They integrate environmental aspects in all functions of the business and the goal is zero waste. This paper presents the importance of concentrating on sustainable issues during the Manufacturing System Design (MSD) phase. There are many stages in the design of a manufacturing system, typically covering process selection; capacity planning, facility layout, etc. (see Fig. 1). It is the intention of this paper to focus on one of the key stages of MSD, which is process selection. A case study is used to demonstrate how companies can move to sustainable manufacturing practices in a large product variety environment. The tools and methodologies developed at each of the key areas of a manufacturing system will transform the current manufacturing system into a sustainable manufacturing system. 2. Literature review Product variety is defined as the number of different versions of product offered by a firm at a single point of time. Variety within the product arises by varying the values of attributes from one product to another such as material, dimensional, aesthetic

and performance attributes [4]. Increasing product variety has implications over the operational performance (production cost or outsourcing cost), so from a firms perspective a trade-off exists between the product variety and operational performance. It is also essential to design a manufacturing system that can manufacture the new version of the product in a sustainable way. Fig. 2 demonstrates how, by focusing on sustainability not only in the product design phase but also in the manufacturing system design phase, environmental impact can be minimised during manufacturing and at the end of a products life. This is essential as the relationship between manufacturing strategies and environmental performance has come under close scrutiny. The increase of environmental consciousness of the public, regulations due to environmental policies and pressures from organised groups all sway companies to adopt an Environmental Management System (EMS). These systems are formulated to help an organisation to evaluate the effectiveness of the activities, operations and services [5]. However, EMSs have been widely criticised by many authors for being another standard and often yield only subtle improvements. The study of product variety has been looked at from various perspectives such as economics, marketing and manufacturing. Despite the environmental drive from regulations or pressures from stakeholders, none of the previous work emphasises implications of product variety on the environment [6]. As mentioned earlier, a trade-off exists between the product variety and operational performance. To overcome this trade-off, companies migrate towards modular design where the final product configuration is obtained by mixing and matching of standard components. The modularity of the product architecture has been accepted as a viable solution to the product variety problem. At a component or a part level, this is done by designing products to an optimal near net shape, where variants are generated from the optimal near net shape. An increase in variety of product would likely result in an increase in a variety of raw material and resource procurement. The product variety is often assumed to yield high revenues and offer a competitive advantage to the firm. However achieving competitive advantage through increased product variety is highly dependent on aligning marketing and manufacturing strategies [7]. In the last few years, there has been increased focus on consideration of environmental issues during the product design and

Market requirements

Sustainable product design and development

Product stewardship, Sustainable consumption, Environmental practices Regulations, Corporate strategies, Green supply chain, Design for X, LCA. Sustainable Manufacturing System Design Manufacturing system requirements Manufacturing process selection Selection and design of equipment Manufacturing system configuration Manufacturing system implementation Manufacturing system reconfiguration Recoverable /Reverse manufacturing

Product design

Sustainable manufacturing system design

Manufacturing system design Sustainable manufacturing Manufacture Minimises environmental impact Product use

Product use

Product end of life

Manufacturing waste

Product disposal

Maximises recovery, reuse, and substitute for raw materials through sustainable practices Sustainable product development

Traditional product development

Fig. 2. The importance of designing products and manufacturing systems for sustainability.

development leading to the development of new paradigms such as Design for X (Environment, Recycle, and Reuse etc), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), EMS, Cleaner Production tools etc. However EMS and Cleaner Production tools play a crucial role once the product, manufacturing processes and manufacturing system have been designed. In the few exceptional cases where companies adopt concurrent engineering, the time of identification of environmental aspects vary depending upon the concurrency of the product development process. As most manufacturers are moving towards offering high product variety to their customers, developing manufacturing systems to meet the objectives such as economy, flexibility, lead time, delivery, etc. is a challenging task. The decisions during the design of manufacturing systems for high product variety should consider not only the operational and economic issues but the environmental performance as well. As been outlined previously in Fig.1, a typical approach to MSD does not include any environmental issues. This paper proposes that typical MSD methods can be adapted to include environmental issues at each of the key stages of MSD so that sustainable manufacturing systems can be achieved. In the interest of brevity, all key stages are not discussed in this paper. However, this paper focuses on just one of the key MSD stages, i.e. process selection, which is outlined in Fig. 3. Here environmental issues such as consumption of material, energy, water, use of toxic materials in the process and emissions from the process are

considered along side traditional issues such as product characteristics, production environment capabilities, etc. 3. Case Study Company A is the collaborating organisation for this research project and is a large multinational automotive component manufacturing company. Company A utilises powder metallurgy and sintering technology to produce a variety of automotive components. The case study with Company A analysed the introduction of a new product variety (Product X, see Fig. 4). The new product is a circular plate with a specified thickness and a specific bore diameter. This component would be part of an assembly for the powertrain system. However, it was noted that within this range, many product variants will be developed over the next few years to penetrate different markets whereby, the range will expand by varying the stepped bore coupled with varying inner, outer diameters and thicknesses as shown in Fig. 4. The traditional process (selected without the consideration of environmental issues) of producing a variety of these products is by centrifugal casting. A long bar is produced by centrifugal casting followed by machining to achieve the final dimensions. These two processes produce high levels of metal waste such as casting defects resulting in scrapping the entire length of the bar which is up to one metre and machining wastes such as swarf, and defects. The machining processes involved are parting, two turning and one boring operation and the respective waste for each operation is shown in Table 1. The

Product characteristics Production environment capabilities Facility tasks Hierarchy priorities Manufacturing constraints Environmental issues (material waste, equipment energy consumption, landfill costs, waste disposal costs, by-product material reuse and byproduct material contamination)

Process selection

Circular Plate Variable

Capable processes Potential processes Preferred possesses

Thickness Variable Stepped Height/Angle Variable

Bore Variable

Fig. 4. Variable sizes for product X.

Capacity planning Product design MSD Process sequence Production device matrix

Fig. 3. Process selection stage of manufacturing system design.

environmental impacts of manufacturing the product are high energy used in the casting process, defect rates in the casting process, machining wastes and swarf produced for every product. Among all the metal swarf from the machining processes, the volume of steel and cast iron swarf produced has a significant impact over the environment and cost. The metal swarf requires appropriate storage space, involves transportation cost and the volume of swarf generated in company A is tremendous. As the swarf is coated with a thin layer of oil particles, re-melting of swarf without processing provides low efficiency and also generates pollution due to burning of oil in the swarf. Finally the low value of steel does not enable metal manufacturers to recycle steel swarf economically. These factors forced manufacturers to dispose the swarf as a solid or hazardous waste depending upon the legislative requirements. Furthermore, the rising cost to landfill affects the disposal of wastes, such as swarf. Apart from these wastes, the company is uncertain about the production volume of each of the product which forces it to stock a wide range of raw materials utilising a large amount of space and energy. In an attempt to reduce the environmental impact and to transit towards sustainable manufacturing, the same product variety is analysed using the process selection stage of the Manufacturing System Design (MSD) shown in Fig. 3.Though it can be inferred that much of the environmental impact occurs actually in the manufacturing phase, the decisions on various manufacturing activities of a product is made at various levels of the MSD process such as process planning, capacity planning, etc. By applying the process selection methodology, capable, potential and preferred

processes are determined. Capable processes are defined as the processes suitable for manufacturing with product material and volume as the inputs, and may be identified by the PRIMA matrix developed by Swift and Booker [8]. The capable processes are shell moulding, ceramic moulding, centrifugal casting, closed die forging, cold forming, powder metallurgy, electrochemical machining, electron beam machining, laser beam machining, chemical machining. Potential processes are identified from the capable processes by correlating the product attributes to the performance characteristics of respective process. Processes such as cold forming and shell moulding are eliminated as they do not meet the product attribute criteria. Preferred processes are selected based upon the correlation of economic, environmental, technical, facility requirements and capabilities, production rate etc. The potential processes are selected using a process knowledge base and preferred processes are selected based upon the importance of each requirement to the company. The final preferred process alternatives are centrifugal casting, powder metallurgy and machining. By utilising the powder metallurgy technology, the component could be manufactured to a near net shape. The process of producing the product by powder metallurgy consists of pressing, dewaxing, sintering and machining. The powder is first pressed into shape by a press and then de-waxed to remove the binding agents. The product is then sintered at very high temperatures. The facing operations of the traditional process have been replaced by a high-volume grinding operation to save machining costs. Finally the turning operations are performed to achieve the specific dimensions. Therefore, by generating products with a near net shape before machining by powder metallurgy process, significant material can be saved for each component which otherwise would have been disposed of in to the environment. In this case, apart from general powder waste during pressing or

Table 1

Table 2

Machining waste in traditional process

Operation Parting Boring Turning 1 Turning 2 Total material waste per part Material waste x103 mm3 8.3 6.6 1.35 1.1 17.35

Machining waste in powder metallurgy process

Operation Grinding Boring Turning Total material waste per part Material waste x103 mm3 0.216 3.534 0.392 4.142

scrapping of the part due to defect (as opposed to entire bar as in casting), the waste generated during the machining process is shown in Table 2. By utilising the powder metallurgy process, there is a significant reduction in material waste. By comparing the material waste generated from two different processes (see Table 1 and Table 2), it is evident that powder metallurgy process produces 76% less waste than the casting process. Furthermore, it was also suggested that by reducing the material waste, the tool life on the machining centres would be increased, thus reducing the need for frequently disposing worn out tools. However, due to the high cost of powder metal and the sintering process, the cost price per piece of product 'X' was found to be three times higher than cast material. This process was favourable from an environmental (material waste) viewpoint. However, in the current economic condition, the new piece price was too high to justify. 4. Discussion For company 'A', the business decisionmaking factors and steps taken to introduce product variety in the company were essential to penetrate newer markets and to gain competitive advantage. Similarly, in todays competitive manufacturing scenario, environmental considerations are also essential to yield intangible benefits and to add credibility to the business. An increase in product variety levels would mean more waste would be generated by the increase in raw material usage, more machining operations and high levels of waste generated to produce the final product. The high manufacturing cost of the powder metallurgy process is due to cost of raw powder material, cost of mixing the powder to the correct specification, cost of carbide tooling for pressing and cost of running the de-wax and sintering furnace (highly significant). The total cost of the product includes the manufacturing cost, waste disposal cost, raw material cost and holding cost. With uncertainty in demand and high product variety in place, the company has to stock more raw material variety and volume with the

traditional process. However, with the suggested powder metallurgy process, the total variety of raw material (material composition) is less. Furthermore, the rising cost of landfill poses a stiff challenge to control the total cost of the products, however with the powder metallurgy process, waste powder is sieved and reused, while the volume of swarf generated is substantially lower. The traditional casting process also has an implication on field failures due to density imperfections and it has also generated huge amount of material waste during casting, which increases the raw material cost. Although the powder metallurgy process results in reduced material waste, the energy consumed in the sintering process is significantly high. However, when the production volume of the product X and its varieties are significantly higher, the economics of scale allows operating sintering equipment of larger capacities to reduce the energy cost per product. To further reduce the cost of the powder metallurgy process a proposal was made to convert the swarf generated by company A to a useful powder material after reprocessing. As the swarf is processed and converted as a powder material the alternative process has low material waste per product when compared with the traditional process. There have been many applications of use of metal swarf for producing metal components and blanks using the powder metallurgy process [9, 10]. The advantage of powder metallurgy is generation of the part to its near net shape. It is estimated that 50% of the production cost is spent on geometric shaping which also involves large material wastes such as swarf, defects, rework, though the parts produced by the powder metallurgy requires machining to achieve the final dimensions, the volume of machining is substantially less which makes powder metallurgy a prospective manufacturing technology. As the swarf is contaminated with oil and other metals, the value of the swarf is very low. To improve the value of swarf recovered, strategies such as improved swarf management by reducing contamination with other metals, breaking up into small fragments, conveying and cleaning swarf have been developed.

Due to the availability of limited data, a detailed cost analysis was not carried out to determine the optimal production volume required by the sintering process which has an equivalent unit price that of the traditional process. Furthermore it is highly difficult to compare the process based on the environmental impacts, because the material waste generated in the traditional process is replaced by high energy consumption in dewaxing and sintering. However, with the availability of modern equipment, heat loss can be substantially minimised. Moreover with the increasing landfill cost, the company may sooner choose this process as a viable option. 5. Conclusion This paper focussed on a case study from a British company and demonstrated how a company can move towards sustainable manufacturing by looking into alternative processes. As the described case study goes beyond the current industrial best practices and approaches, it is also necessary to look at the barriers which hinder a company in moving towards sustainable manufacturing. First of all there has always been a trade-off between environmental impact and other factors such as quality, cost, performance, etc. Generally companies favour cost as a predominant factor unless the environmental impact of the product or the process is regulated by legislation. It is clearly evident there is less scope for improving sustainability (reducing environmental impact, cost etc.) once the process has been selected and the manufacturing system has been designed. For instance, the case study outlined that the traditional manufacturing process produces high material waste and with the total production volume of all the varieties is expected to be in millions per annum, the material waste is highly significant in terms of sustainability. There are process models that exist in practice and literature to analyse the trade-offs such as volume, cost, defects, etc. but these models lack the analysis between the environmental impacts, energy, cost, etc. The study also indicates that technological capabilities and economic risk are the two main factors which prevent a company to adopt sustainable manufacturing. An environmental oriented methodology to process selection has been shown in the case study. The powder metallurgy generates low material waste but the production cost is significantly higher compared to the casting process which makes this alternative impracticable in current economic conditions. Although in this case, it is not economic

to use the powder metallurgy process; this would need to be reviewed against anticipated increase in energy and landfill cost. It is also anticipated that at high volumes (either due to individual product volume or cumulated volume of all the varieties) and with the use of energy efficient sintering equipment, the cost of the powder metallurgy process can be significantly reduced. The proposed sustainable manufacturing system design method forces manufacturing engineers to consider additional environmental factors in process selection such as material waste, tool change or disposal, raw material consumption, landfill costs, waste storage and disposal costs, byproduct material reuse and by-product material contamination. References
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