Development of a sustainability assessment framework for the maintenance of manufacturing equipment

Abstract

In an age where globalisation is on the increase, sustainable development is on the forefront of manufacturing companies’ strategies. Nowadays, manufacturing organisations face the struggle of achieving excellent economic performance, whilst constantly challenged with growing social and environmental responsibilities. Hence, sustainable thinking plays a crucial role in the organisations’ decision-making and administration, having to implement sustainable practices in all of the company’s processes, including asset management. Where maintenance was simply viewed as a cost-adding burden, nowadays, manufacturing companies recognise maintenance as a value-adding activity. This project developed a framework capable of measuring the sustainability impact of maintenance of manufacturing equipment. The assessment provides the organisation with a Maintenance Sustainability Index, offering further information on the respective impact on the economic, environmental, and societal aspects of sustainability. Through this assessment, companies can identify and understand how a maintenance process impacts sustainability, whether on a machine, line, or plant level. The framework is initiated with a goal definition stage, to structure the rest of the assessment. Indicators and metrics are chosen based on the maintenance process’ contributing impacts to sustainability. This project details a metric selection model, and produces a metric set to serve as a guideline for metric selection. The indicators and metrics chosen are then assigned priority weightings to assert the level of importance. This can be carried out using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology. Different normalisation techniques are then discussed to identify the one that suits best the assessment. Finally, the sustainable indices are aggregated and formulated. The concept of the framework was further evaluated amongst various industry experts through a series of individual interviews to assess its strength and limitations. This was beneficial to prepare the framework for a set of pilot implementations, to better assess its effectiveness in practice. The AHP methodology was trialled to assign priority weightings to a metric set and ensure its validity, and the full framework was then implemented within two local manufacturing companies.