Improvement of a manufacturing process for sustainability using modeling and simulation

Abstract

Sustainable manufacturing provides the opportunity for companies to reduce the environmental impact of their processes by producing more efficiently. This project studies the benefits of sustainable manufacturing and shows them in a case study. The methodology followed in the project starts with choosing a suitable manufacturing process from a factory; to observe and collect data from the process. Then, with the knowledge acquired of the manufacturing process, the next step is to build a model with a simulation software named Witness. The model is meant to work as the real manufacturing process in order to simulate some scenarios that will turn out the manufacturing process more sustainable. In order to quantify the improvements in the process, a section in the project defines some sustainable measures, such as, waste generation, energy consumption and GHG emissions. The project results in suggestions to reduce the environmental impact and improve the productivity of the manufacturing process for sustainable manufacturing .