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Sustainability
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Lean Manufacturing, Operational Excellence and Sustainability
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Lean Manufacturing, Operational Excellence and Sustainability

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2020) | Viewed by 24109

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Andrea Chiarini

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Guest Editor
Department of Business Administration, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
Interests: lean manufacturing; TQM; Six Sigma; sustainable operations management; Industry 4.0
Dr. Valeria Belvedere

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Guest Editor
Department of Economics and Business Management Sciences, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy
Interests: manufacturing companies; operations strategy; behavioral operations; sustainable supply chain management; performance measurement
Prof. Dr. Alberto Grando

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Guest Editor
Department of Management and Technology, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy
Interests: supply chain and logistics management; operations strategy; sustainable operations management; lean thinking; Industry 4.0

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue will comprise a selection of papers addressing investigations for combining lean, operational excellence, and sustainability. Research papers will address the many-sided phenomena of integrating management systems, tools, and technologies, aimed at the following:

  • enabling a higher degree of convergence between sustainability and other manufacturing performances, namely cost, quality, time, and flexibility
  • reducing the environmental waste generated by manufacturing and supply chain activities
  • improving environmental and social performance through the re-design and/or reengineering of the production system
  • leveraging up-to-date technologies to pursue sustainability targets
  • shaping theoretical new models for operational excellence

Covered topics include operations and sustainability strategies, lean implementations for sustainability in operational processes and supply chain, product/service design, lean agile and sustainability, lean and Six Sigma systems integrated with sustainability, lean, sustainability and the use of new smart digital technologies, operational excellence and CSR performance measurement systems, among others.

We therefore welcome a wide range of papers, including theoretical and practical research, based, in any case, on a sound methodology.

Papers selected for this Special Issue are subject to a rigorous peer review procedure, with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, developments, and applications.

Dr. Andrea Chiarini
Dr. Valeria Belvedere
Prof. Dr. Alberto Grando
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • lean
  • kaizen
  • Six Sigma
  • operational excellence
  • sustainable supply chain
  • sustainable operations
  • sustainability
  • corporate social responsibility
  • environmental management
  • smart factory
  • Industry 4.0

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 1607 KiB  
Article
An Integrated Decision-Making Approach for Cause-And-Effect Analysis of Sustainable Manufacturing Indicators
by Neeraj Bhanot, Fahham Hasan Qaiser, Mohammed Alkahtani and Ateekh Ur Rehman
Sustainability 2020, 12(4), 1517; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12041517 - 18 Feb 2020
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 3038
Abstract
Sustainability is a growing concern for manufacturing companies, as they are major contributors to pollution and consume a substantial portion of the world´s natural resources. Sustainable manufacturing can reduce waste, conserve energy and increase resource efficiency. However, one of the main challenges facing [...] Read more.
Sustainability is a growing concern for manufacturing companies, as they are major contributors to pollution and consume a substantial portion of the world´s natural resources. Sustainable manufacturing can reduce waste, conserve energy and increase resource efficiency. However, one of the main challenges facing manufacturing organisations to put sustainability into practice is the lack of understanding of the cause-and-effect relationships between critical indicators of sustainable manufacturing. To overcome this challenge, a novel, rigorous and integrated framework, composed of four quantitative methods, is proposed to analyse critical indicators of sustainable manufacturing. The analysis is based on responses from both academic and industry experts. These four methods including DEMATEL (decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory), the MMDE (maximum mean de-entropy) algorithm, ISM (interpretive structural modelling) and SEM (structural equation modelling) are uniquely integrated to present statistically validated relationships between critical indicators using information on varying degrees of relationship between them. The final cause-and-effect models for the respondent groups (i.e., researchers and industry experts) are further validated through gathering the viewpoints of a researcher and an industry practitioner for its robustness. The novelty of our research lies in: (1) proposing a novel and integrated rigorous quantitative framework combined with qualitative research method; (2) applying the proposed framework to analyse contextual relationships between critical indicators of implementing sustainability, in the manufacturing sector as a whole, which to the best of authors’ knowledge is the first of its kind; and (3) comparing and contrasting results of researchers and industry practitioners’ groups along with a check of their validation and robustness. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lean Manufacturing, Operational Excellence and Sustainability)
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21 pages, 2069 KiB  
Article
Lean-Green Manufacturing Practices and Their Link with Sustainability: A Critical Review
by Wadhah Abualfaraa, Konstantinos Salonitis, Ahmed Al-Ashaab and Maher Ala’raj
Sustainability 2020, 12(3), 981; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12030981 - 29 Jan 2020
Cited by 92 | Viewed by 12652
Abstract
The current rapidly changing and highly competitive market has put companies under a great pressure towards adopting sustainable practices, in terms of keeping a healthy balance among economic, environmental and social performances. In this context, the lean-green manufacturing approach, which combines lean practices [...] Read more.
The current rapidly changing and highly competitive market has put companies under a great pressure towards adopting sustainable practices, in terms of keeping a healthy balance among economic, environmental and social performances. In this context, the lean-green manufacturing approach, which combines lean practices focused on customers’ demand, and green practices focused on reducing the business’ environmental impact, has gained popularity. Nevertheless, the lean-green manufacturing is still a relatively new practice, lacking a clear and structured research definition, and of significant evidence of successful cases in the practice. In this paper, a literature review is conducted to identify the actual possibility of combining lean and green practices, the current trends for implementing such combination and the potential sustainability improvements such implementation can lead. It is the authors’ intention that the findings analysed in this paper can contribute to the state-of-the-art of lean-green manufacturing and provide practitioners with a useful tool towards developing effective strategies for its deployment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lean Manufacturing, Operational Excellence and Sustainability)
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19 pages, 2381 KiB  
Article
Climate Change Mitigation: Application of Management Production Philosophies for Energy Saving in Industrial Processes
by Angels Niñerola, Ramon Ferrer-Rullan and Antoni Vidal-Suñé
Sustainability 2020, 12(2), 717; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12020717 - 19 Jan 2020
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 4582
Abstract
Climate change is a fact. Global warming of the planet is a result of the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the cause of serious sustainability issues. The objective of this article is to highlight the potential of the Six Sigma [...] Read more.
Climate change is a fact. Global warming of the planet is a result of the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the cause of serious sustainability issues. The objective of this article is to highlight the potential of the Six Sigma methodology to reduce energy consumption in the productive sphere, with consequential reductions in pollutant emissions. We present a systematic literature review that highlights the increasing interest from academics and practitioners in using quality management philosophies for addressing sustainability issues. From the analysis carried out, it is clear that Lean is being used in this regard but the potential of Six Sigma is not being exploited. Taking advantage of the best of both approaches (Lean Six Sigma) can contribute to reducing energy consumption in industrial processes and contribute to mitigating the impacts of those processes on climate change. Moreover, through keyword analysis, we found that the three dimensions of sustainability are currently gaining importance in the literature, when previously only the economic pillar was relevant. Finally, we raise some questions for reflection for academics but also for practitioners, as the problem is a global problem that should be faced by all the community. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lean Manufacturing, Operational Excellence and Sustainability)
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22 pages, 1027 KiB  
Article
Supply Chain Coordination in the Context of Green Marketing Efforts and Capacity Expansion
by Shan Chang, Bin Hu and Xiuhong He
Sustainability 2019, 11(20), 5734; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11205734 - 16 Oct 2019
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2659
Abstract
This paper focuses on coordination issues related to the green supply chain with capacity constraints and green marketing efforts. We build a two-stage green supply chain, in which the upstream manufacturer has a certain amount of installed capacity to produce green product, yet [...] Read more.
This paper focuses on coordination issues related to the green supply chain with capacity constraints and green marketing efforts. We build a two-stage green supply chain, in which the upstream manufacturer has a certain amount of installed capacity to produce green product, yet can expand its capacity through a Cloud Manufacturing (CM) Platform once its existing capacity becomes insufficient, while the downstream retailer expends green marketing effort to promote the green product. In particular, we analyze the interaction between the capacity expansion options of the manufacturer and the green marketing efforts of the retailer. Aiming to mitigate the inefficiency under a decentralized green supply chain, we design a contract that combines cost-sharing and revenue-sharing in green marketing in order to coordinate the supply chain. The results show that: (1) when the manufacturer’s existing capacity falls below a certain threshold, it will choose to expand its capacity. The threshold is related to existing capacity, capacity expansion cost coefficient, green marketing cost coefficient, and sensitivity coefficient of demand to green marketing. (2) Under low capacity, if the capacity expansion cost coefficient is large, a higher consumer environmental awareness or preference for green products will weaken the retailer’s motivation for expending green effort. (3) A contract for cost-sharing and revenue-sharing in green marketing can fully coordinate the green supply chain, whereby the two share proportions are equal and meet certain constraints. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lean Manufacturing, Operational Excellence and Sustainability)
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