Sustainability Strategy Analysis

Sustainability Strategy Analysis 1
SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY ANALYSIS
Name
Course
Professor
University
City/state
Date

Sustainability Strategy Analysis 2
Table of Contents
1. Introduction.......................................................................................................................................3
2. Objective............................................................................................................................................4
3. Sustainability Factors........................................................................................................................5
3.1. Proposed data analytics approach............................................................................................5
3.1.1. Data preparation................................................................................................................5
3.1.2. Correlation analysis...........................................................................................................6
3.1.3. Determining efficiency frontiers.......................................................................................6
3.1.4. Quantifying energy efficiency potentials..........................................................................6
3.2. Automation.................................................................................................................................6
3.3. Smart manufacturing................................................................................................................7
3.4. ICT tools.....................................................................................................................................8
3.5. Planning and scheduling systems..............................................................................................8
4. Summary............................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................................11

Sustainability Strategy Analysis 3
1. Introduction
Sustainability has become an issue of great concern in all sectors and engineering fields
over the last decade. It is now a very crucial subject for both the current and future generations
(Garetti & Taisch, 2012). In simple terms, sustainability is a concept of using less resources to
produce more products (Litos, et al., 2017). Manufacturing being a key pillar of social
development is one of the sectors that account for the largest percentage of total global energy
and materials consumption and waste production (Ocampo & Clark, 2014). As a result, the
sector contributes a large portion of greenhouse gas emissions that continue to worsen the global
climate change problem. It is estimated that manufacturing sector accounts for approximately
30% of global carbon dioxide emissions (Owodunni, 2017). Today, sustainable manufacturing is
an emerging environmental, technological, social and economic challenge to the manufacturing
industry stakeholders, government entities and academia. Manufacturers have developed
different strategies and practices to make their operations more sustainable. One of these
strategies are use of energy efficiency advances that are aimed at minimizing energy
consumption in production processes. Reducing energy consumption in manufacturing sector has
numerous environmental, economic and social benefits (Abdul-Rashid, et al., 2017); (May &
Kiritsis, 2017).
This paper analyzes an article written by Song, et al. (2018) about how data-driven
approach can be used to improve energy efficiency in manufacturing systems. Th authors are
from Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology and the article was presented in the 25th
CRP Life Cycle Engineering Conference held in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 30 April to 2 May
2018. According to the authors of this article, the best approach of reducing the amount of
energy consumed by a manufacturing system is to analyze the complexity, dynamics and the

Sustainability Strategy Analysis 4
related power consumption data of various machines used in the production processes. The
authors of the article have proposed a data-driven approach comprising of the following four
steps: collecting and organizing data; carrying out correlation analysis of operations and data
consumption, performing frontier analysis of energy efficiency, and quantification of potential
energy saving (Song, et al., 2018).
Technology has a very big role to play in achieving sustainable manufacturing. The
subject area that this paper focuses on is the use of technological tools such as information and
communication technology (ICT) tools to improve energy efficiency of production processes.
This is a very essential subject in modern-day manufacturing industry because most of the
operations are going digital and are driven by data. Therefore any company aiming at increasing
sustainability of its operations should understand how to mine and use data to improve
efficiency. The improved efficiency can be in terms of reducing energy and water consumption,
and minimizing or eliminating wastage. However, this paper is only focused on improving
energy efficiency of manufacturing systems using data-driven approach.
2. Objective
The objective of this report is to critically analyze the way energy efficiency of
manufacturing systems can be improved using data-driven approach. The data-driven approach
entails collecting data on how various machines in the manufacturing systems consume energy;
using the data to design predictive models of energy consumption; and making decisions,
including upgrading existing machines, buying new ones or educating and training staff on
sustainability goals and practices, so as to reduce overall energy consumption in different levels
of production. These practices will the wider society’s future needs by optimizing design of
machine tools and their operations. As a result, the machine tools will be designed to consume