A Graph Theory approach to measure the performance of sustainability enablers in a manufacturing organization

Figures & data

Table 1 Summary of literature review.

Authors	Year	Area of Study	Remarks
Andersson	1998	Combination of both sustainability principles and life cycle assessment (LCA) approach, for product development	Good approach from a qualitative point of view
Ron	1998	Sustainable production through continuous improvement of efficiency, quality and flexibility	The current performance is evaluated with respect to sustainable production
Tang	2001	Graph Theory to compute the reliability of mechanical systems	Physical interconnections between the components while applying Graph Theory
Veleva	2001	Assessment of the existing sustainability indicator systems	Discusses achieving sustainability from environmental, health and safety point of view
Labuschagne	2005	Assessment of the sustainability performance of operations in the manufacturing sector	Multi criteria decision analysis techniques were used to derive sustainability assessment results
Lozano	2008	Two approaches to develop sustainable organizations through collaboration among individuals, groups and organizations	Discusses how collaborative actions can lead to sustainability
Darvish	2009	Graph Theory methodology as a decision support system in contractor selection for construction procurement	The method can consider both quantitative and qualitative contractor selection factors
Todd	2009	Application of Graph Theory in cluster analysis	The method performs better than the traditional cluster analysis methods
Hallstedt	2010	Assessment of integrated sustainability in an organization's strategic decision system	Compared different organizations in terms of sustainability integration
Jayal	2010	Sustainability of products and processes in manufacturing and post manufacturing stages	Discusses achieving sustainability from product, process and system level
Vinod and Rathod	2010	Sustainable product design by integrating environmentally conscious quality function deployment and LCA methodologies	Discussed the objective of sustainable manufacturing at product level
Vinodh	2010	Combination of agility and sustainability in a competitive environment	Discussed sustainability measures like Carbon footprint, air acidification, total energy consumption and water eutrophication
Dao and Mcphee	2011	Graph Theory based approach for the dynamic description of electrochemical systems	Graph Theory procedure reduced complexity compared to the other models
Lambooy	2011	Discusses role of companies in dealing with the crisis of freshwater scarcity	Discussed qualitative information on Environmental sustainability
Ghadimi	2012	Weighted fuzzy assessment method for product sustainability assessment	Fuzzy analytical hierarchy process was used to find the overall sustainability
Joung	2013	Deals with measurement process for assessing sustainability of manufacturing processes	Discusses measuring sustainability indicators using a different approach
Singh	2012	Discusses various sustainability indices which measure sustainable development	Suggested few methods which can help in selecting an effective index
Smith and Ball	2012	Sustainability of processes for material, energy and waste	Discussed a set of guidelines and improvements which can support the objective of sustainable manufacturing
Todorut	2012	Achieving sustainable development in an organization through total quality management (TQM) and strategic management principles	Discusses how TQM approach can lead to sustainability

Table 2 Taxonomy of sustainable manufacturing attributes.

Sl. No.	Sustainability enablers	Sustainability attributes	Acronyms	Notation
1	Economic sustainability (A^1)	Financial health	FH	A1^1
2		Economic performance	EP	A1^2
3		Market potential	MP	A1^3
4		Potential financial benefits	PFB	A1^4
5		Trading opportunities	TO	A1^5
6	Environmental sustainability (A^2)	Air resources	AR	A2^1
7		Water resources	WR	A2^2
8		Land resources	LR	A2^3
9		Mineral and energy resources	MER	A2^4
10		End of life disposal policy	EOLD	A2^5
11	Societal sustainability (A^3)	Internal human resources	IHR	A3^1
12		External population	EP	A3^2
13		Stake holder participation	SP	A3^3
14		Macro Social performance	MSP	A3^4
15		Customer orientation	CO	A3^5

Table 3 Scale values to investigate the performance of each sustainable manufacturing attribute.

Scale level	Quantitative Measure of factors	Explanation
1	Extremely low	When the organization's product/process has very high negative impact on the sustainable manufacturing attribute (or) when the performance level of the sustainable manufacturing attribute is very negligible, and the organization is not aware of it
3	Low	When the organization's product/process has very high negative impact on the sustainable manufacturing attribute (or) when the performance level of the sustainable manufacturing attribute is very negligible, and the organization is aware of it
5	Average	When the organization's product/process has moderate impact on the sustainable manufacturing attribute (or) when the performance level of the sustainable manufacturing attribute is moderate
7	High	When the organization's product/process has less impact on the sustainable manufacturing attribute (or) when the performance level of the sustainable manufacturing attribute is good
9	Extremely high	When the organization's product/process has least/positive impact on the sustainable manufacturing attribute (or) when the performance level of the sustainable manufacturing attribute is excellent
2,4,6,8	In-between values	Intermediate values

Note: Adapted from Saaty (1980).

Table 4 A sample checklist to measure ‘economic sustainability’ enabler attributes.

Sl No	Taxonomy enabler level	Attribute	Acronyms	Notations	Scale value (1–9)
1.	Economic sustainability (A^1)	Financial health	FH	A1^1	8
		Economic performance	EP	A1^2	9
		Market potential	MP	A1^3	8
		Potential financial benefits	PFB	A1^4	8
		Trading opportunities	TO	A1^5	9

Table 5 Scale values to investigate the inter relationship or dependency of one sustainable manufacturing attribute on the other.

Scale level	Quantitative measure of dependency	Explanation
1	Very low	When the particular sustainable manufacturing attribute has negligible relationship/very less dependency on the other sustainable manufacturing attribute
2	Low	When the particular sustainable manufacturing attribute has a weak relationship/less dependency on the other sustainable manufacturing attribute
3	Average	When the particular sustainable manufacturing attribute has average relationship/moderate dependency on the other sustainable manufacturing attribute
4	High	When the particular sustainable manufacturing attribute has good relationship/high dependency on the other sustainable manufacturing attribute
5	Extremely high	When the particular sustainable manufacturing attribute has excellent relationship/very high dependency on the other sustainable manufacturing attribute

Figure 1 Digraph for sustainability enablers.

Figure 2 Digraph for the ‘economic sustainability’ enabler.

Figure 3 Digraph for ‘environmental sustainability’ enabler.

Figure 4 Digraph for ‘societal sustainability’ enabler.

Table 6 Permanent values for the case organization – current value, best case and worst case situation.

Enabler	Current situation	Practical best case situation	Practical worst case situation
	Permanent value	log 10 value	Permanent value	log 10 value	Permanent value	log 10 value
Pm (A^1)	219160	5.340	261124	5.417	22436	4.351
Pm (A^2)	223718	5.349	252846	5.403	21942	4.341
Pm (A^3)	133982	5.127	155638	5.192	4678	3.670
Pm (SM)	6.5691 E 15	15.82	1.0276 E 16	16.01	2.3029 E 12	12.362

Figure 5 Sustainability measurement scale.

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