Sensitization of Sustainable Manufacturing Strategies to Benefit Indian SMEs

Sustainable Manufacturing Practices

In the past, green competitive pressure and government legislations were not same for developing and developed countries. But, scarcity of material and energy, the improved environmental consciousness of customers and globalization turned the scenario (Nidumolu et al. 2009). These form the major reason for restructuring organizations stake on sustainable development. Altogether, these reasons force organizations to shift from pollution control strategy to prevention strategy.

Also, based on analysis of process flow diagram (Figure 1) of the manufacturing process, the identified wastes are released to technosphere and ecosphere. Kleindorfer et al. (2005) suggested employee involvement, waste reduction, energy conservation, and emission control are important internal strategies to enable sustainability of organizations. Also, Rashid et al. (2008) pointed out, for enabling sustainable material unitization: waste minimization, material efficiency, resource efficiency and eco-efficiency as the critical strategy. However, sustainable manufacturing practices have three perspectives namely material, system and process (Vimal et al. 2014). Sustainable manufacturing practices focus on input materials, processes, Transportation, packaging and disposal after use phase, among others. Of the life cycle stages, material and manufacturing processes are found to be significant as far as the environment is considered.