Find Gold In Sustainable Manufacturing

Societal, economic, and environmental objectives are making sustainable practices mandatory for all industrial operations, even yours.

By Drew D. Troyer, CRE, Contributing Editor

Sustainable manufacturing requires operations to strike a balance between societal, economic, and environmental objectives. The U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington (commerce.gov), defines sustainable manufacturing as “the creation of manufactured products that use processes that minimize negative environmental impacts; conserve energy and natural resources; are safe for employees, communities, and consumers; and are economically sound.” While that statement is basically correct, it could be expanded to include products and services.

If you’re working in discrete or process operations and not paying much attention to sustainable-manufacturing practices, be advised that the clock is ticking. Millennials—and generations beyond—are and will continue demanding sustainably produced products and services. This article, though, aims to open your eyes regarding the topic, and help you get the sustainable-manufacturing ball rolling in your organization.

Fig. 1. Sustainable manufacturing is a balancing game. Winning involves enhancing the quality of life for humans in an economically viable way that doesn’t create an environment where they can’t exist.

MATERIAL-BALANCE CHALLENGE

The simplest definition of manufacturing is the conversion of raw materials to finished goods which, of course, requires extracted, harvested, recycled, or otherwise-obtained materials. Additionally, manufacturing processes to achieve the conversion require energy and other supplemental materials, such as water and chemicals. Still further, materials are required to design and build plants to create the manufacturing conversion, support upstream logistics to receive raw materials, and to transport finished goods to consumers. This is the materials life cycle.

Life-cycle analysis (LCA) seeks to evaluate how efficiently and effectively materials are utilized in the manufacturing process and the logistics that support it.

Life-cycle analysis (LCA) seeks to evaluate how efficiently and effectively we use materials in the manufacturing process and the logistics that support it (Fig. 2). Note that while the focus here is on the materials life cycle, the needs of people, including customers, employees, and communities, are at the center of all life-cycle analyses.

START WITH THE PRODUCT

A product, tangible or intangible, is intended to provide utility that’s deemed valuable to people. Product design drives the balance of the materials life cycle as it determines what type and how much raw material, energy, water, chemical, and other resources are required to deliver the demanded utility.

Sustainable product design involves two types of considerations: demand-side and supply-side.

On the demand side of the equation, consumers ultimately decide what and how much of a given product they demand. For example, if consumers demand large, gas-guzzling vehicles in lieu of more fuel-efficient options or public transportation, manufacturers will deliver such products. The sustainable manufacturer, in turn, must decide whether or not it has a social responsibility to promote more-sustainable types of options that can move the demand needle in favor of sustainability.

On the supply side, product designers must consider the raw materials, energy, water, and chemicals required to produce the products they offer. Some questions for the product designer include:

• Can the utility to the customer be delivered by products designed with fewer material inputs than previous offerings?

• Can the product be manufactured using a higher percentage of recycled materials?

• Can the product be manufactured with less energy and other input materials?

• If virgin materials are required to manufacture the product, can they be readily and efficiently recycled?

Design decisions determine the vast majority of environmental impacts across a product’s life cycle. While efficiencies can be found in the manufacturing and logistics aspects of the life cycle, these are heavily influenced by the product design decisions that are made very early on in the lifecycle.

Once the product is designed to deliver the required utility to the customer with the smallest quantity of input materials and by maximizing the use of recycled and/or recyclable materials, we must next turn our attention to input materials, which raises the following questions:

• Are we sourcing extracted, harvested, or otherwise-obtained raw materials from suppliers that minimize environmental impact?

• Are materials being extracted from areas that minimize impact on, among other things, species, their habitat, and water-drainage areas?

• Are material-extraction methods used to minimize the impact on the environment?

• Is energy sourced from sustainable providers?

• Are chemicals, water, and other manufacturing inputs sourced from organizations that are themselves sustainable in the production of these materials?

• Are measures taken to minimize material usage required for input-material logistics?

Many questions must also be answered regarding the manufacturing process. For example:

• Is the manufacturing process designed to minimize the amount of materials, including energy, water, chemicals, and other inputs?

• Is the manufacturing process designed to minimize the amount of material transfer and the number of discrete processes required for conversion to a product?

• Have measures been taken to minimize frictional losses and leaking and spills of process liquids and gases?

• Does the process assure a high degree of first-pass quality goods to reduce waste associated with the disposal of nonconforming production?

• Has the selection of energy-efficient machines and components been prioritized in the design?

• Is the plant designed for reliability, operability, maintainability, and safety to increase the life of the machines and reduce the likelihood of adverse events that could cause harm to employees, the community, and consumers?

• Does the plant follow operations and maintenance best practices so as to increase machine life, reduce energy consumption, minimize the likelihood of leaks and spills, and maximize safety?

• Are measures taken to capture, recycle, and reuse energy, water, and chemicals and minimize harmful solid, liquid, and gas effluent?

The last leg of the process involves delivery. Much like a product itself, there are demand and supply aspects to the product-delivery challenge. On the demand side, increasing numbers of products are being shipped directly to customers as a result of online-shopping options. This situation, on one hand, reflects the loss of an environmentally related economy of scale from shipping in large volume to retail outlets where consumers shop. Additionally, this form of shopping requires a great deal of packaging material to ensure products are delivered undamaged.

On the other hand, materials, especially energy, are required for shoppers to travel to retail outlets. Furthermore, a large amount of materials, especially land, are required to construct, energize, and maintain retail outlets. For example, in the United States, an estimated 6,000 acres/day are being lost to commercial real-estate development. That alarming trend can’t continue indefinitely.

The jury is not yet in on which mode of purchasing has more impact on the environment. On the supply side, manufacturers can influence energy and other materials required to ship products to customers by way of the downstream supply chain and influence the amount and type of packaging materials, e.g., virgin or recycled.

MEASURE AND IMPLEMENT

As with any management initiative, industrial operations must assess where they are with sustainable manufacturing, set goals, and create plans to achieve them based upon economic, societal, and environmental goals; implement the plans; measure progress; and continuously improve. Fortunately, tools, techniques, and information are available to assist your organization in this regard. To get started, refer to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Washington (oecd.org), which has created a useful set of metrics and indicators and an associated guide.

Implementation of sustainable manufacturing, like any other major initiative, requires a measured and managed approach. Begin by educating key decision-makers and influencers to gain buy-in. Once you gain commitment, follow the standard management process that’s defined in ISO 14000 (environmental management), ISO 26000 (social responsibility), and collateral standards such as ISO 55000 (asset management) and ISO 45000 (safety management), among others, to develop a policy, a strategy, goals, and plans. The policy represents the organization’s commitment to sustainable manufacturing. The strategy (which should be long-term), defines the goals and components necessary to achieve them. The plans describe how the strategy will be achieved. In short, policy = why; strategy = what; and plans = how.

It will be necessary to benchmark your current performance on each of the applicable indicators. Because you’ll be pursuing a long-term strategy, be sure to rank the opportunities. In this case, you’ll evaluate your opportunities based upon economic, societal, and environmental impacts relative to the time required to implement, the cost of implementation, and the probability of success. As with any initiative of this nature, you’ll discover, through the analysis process, that there are some “big-easy/low-hanging-fruit” opportunities, i.e., those that require little effort to generate substantial impact. Tackle such initiatives first, then measure your success and advertise and celebrate it. This helps create inertia for executing the longer-term, more-complex aspects.

Sustainable manufacturing is very much a cross-functional proposition. In fact, the long-term objectives can’t be achieved solely inside the four walls of a plant. Remember that success requires procurement staff, product-design and process-design engineers, supply-chain managers, human resources, and the finance team all to be on board.

Don’t take the pedal off the metal in terms of education, i.e., culture change. Some personnel will buy in immediately, others will come along more slowly, and still others will completely resist. Be prepared to supply plenty of nurturing—and for the inevitable fact that not everyone will come around. (You may find that the last category may not be a good fit for the organization going forward). The goal with any transformational process is to reach the “tipping point” where about 30% of the organization can be called true believers. Don’t treat the human aspects of your sustainable-manufacturing transformation lightly.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The prospect of becoming a sustainable-manufacturing operation may seem daunting. While you may be thinking your organization can’t afford to dive in completely, there are some ways to achieve short-term environmental wins without changing your product and process designs. You can then transition into the more complex aspects of sustainable manufacturing over time—starting with small changes to existing products, processes, and materials-input and -output logistical systems.

Many organizations go into sustainable manufacturing thinking it will cost them money, only to find that they’re actually more profitable. Lower energy costs; lower raw-materials costs; lower waste-collection, treatment, and disposal costs; and lower life-cycle-asset costs put money on the bottom line while simultaneously serving societal and environmental goals. Just as important, it’s proven that consumers are increasingly willing to pay a premium for sustainably manufactured products. As younger generations enter the economy, that trend will only continue. Make plans and start acting now to ensure your organization is on their lists of approved suppliers. EP

Drew Troyer, principal with Sigma Reliability Solutions, is based in Tulsa, OK. A Certified Reliability Engineer (American Society for Quality, Milwaukee, asq.org), contact him at Drew.Troyer@sigma-reliability.com.