SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING MATURITY MODEL: CONCEPT AND APPLICATIONS

Sustainable manufacturing (SM) is a multi-faceted concept. It broadly implies the development and implementation of technologies, projects and initiatives that are concerned with the life cycle of products and services, and are able to bring positive impacts to the environment, company stakeholders and profitability. Because of this, pursuing SM-related goals requires a holistic, life-cycle-thinking approach from manufacturing companies. Further, such an approach must rely on a logic of continuous- improvement in order to be effective. There is a general lack of support for obtaining quantifiable measurements in order to objectively evaluate and identify improvement areas within SM for standards conformance. To bridge this gap, the concept of a sustainable manufacturing maturity model (SMMM) has been proposed. The SMMM, inspired by previous maturity models, is a matrix-fashioned framework made up of five maturity levels that can refer to either economic, environmental or social sustainability. Each maturity level, ranging from initial to optimized, relates to the product lifecycle’s stage, from material extraction to product reuse. The application of the SMMM is achieved through questionnaires and checklists. They rely on a consistent set of performance indicators and test models that can be quantifiably measured with stated uncertainties. Such performance indicators and models are taken from life cycle management tools, techniques and measurements through manufacturing unit process characterizations, among others. Aggregate findings from the questionnaires should ultimately tell how mature the company or factory is when it comes to process management linked to SM goals. The use of the SMMM will enable visual, intuitive internal sustainability benchmarking and raise awareness of improvement areas that, once addressed, will lead companies towards an increasingly developed SM.