Sustainable electronics product design and manufacturing: State of art review

ABSTRACT

The paper reviews the studies on sustainable electronics reported in the literature and determines opportunities through which the expansion of sustainable electronic products is possible. The sustainable growth of electronics products from product, process and material dimensions, and modelling of sustainable electronics were reviewed based on 57 papers from the literature. The review findings were used to identify the methods for improvement of the sustainability of electronic products. The study proposes a sustainability framework for electronic product design. The significant finding of the investigation reported in this review is that the deployment efforts of sustainability in electronics design and manufacturing are in the nascent stages and the attempts enhance the effectiveness of the implementation of sustainable manufacturing. The study investigates research studies from the viewpoint of implementing sustainable electronics product design and manufacturing. Besides, the deployment of the proposed framework to other organisations could also be validated. The findings of this literature investigation specified the need for enhancing the usefulness of sustainable electronics design and manufacturing approach. This study logically presents sustainable electronics product design and manufacturing under four critical perspectives. The study recognises research gaps and proposes methods for improvement.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability
• product design
• electronics manufacturing
• environmental design
• material selection
• process improvement
• modelling

Introduction

Sustainable development has turned out to be a primary global concern due to the potential rise in the exhaustion of non-renewable supplies and a rise in eco disposals (Esmaeilian, Behdad, and Wang 2016). Green approaches and renewable sources could be used to mitigate the effect of carbon emissions on the economic growth (Khan et al. 2018a). The firms could increase environmental and financial performance through green practices in their supply chain and thus overall organisational performance (Khan et al. 2018b). The regulatory bodies and corporate sector must uphold social and environmental sustainability. Significant green ideology factors are government subsidies, tax exemptions, environmental‐friendly policies, usage of renewable energy and reduction in consumption of fossil fuels (Khan et al. 2019). Approaches to integrate Industry 4.0 with circular supply chain must be formulated to transform operations to become more sustainable (Kumar et al. 2020).

Green manufacturing/sustainability issues are some significant manufacturing challenges (Bennett 2014). Sustainability theory highlights the development of environmentally benign products and processes by economic and societal characteristics (Sikdar 2007; Cockerill 2004). Since industries utilise plenty of energy and supplies, government impels organisations to implement sustainability to minimise resource utilisation (Yagi and Halada 2001). With environmental policies becoming more inflexible, organisations are compelled to meet the requirement for sustainable products. Therefore, contemporary firms are implementing sustainable manufacturing.

Meanwhile, the electronics sector has witnessed rapid growth in the current decade due to technological developments and enhanced demand (MacK 2011). The increasing need for environmental well-being (Chiang et al. 2011) and attributes of safety and sustainability are inducing the development of the industry. Haapala et al. (2013) investigated sustainable manufacturing theories, methods, and techniques. The authors discussed various sustainability issues and reported that electronics production causes emissions in the form of toxic and greenhouse gases. Simiari, Shojaee, and Oladghaffari (2018) discussed end-of-life management of electronic products, as it contributes significantly to the product sustainability and hence, authors derived the disposal strategies. Regulatory bodies have started providing incentives and awareness among people for e-waste management (Jafari, Heydari, and Keramati 2017), thereby endorsing the need for sustainable product development.

Sustainable electronics product design and manufacturing is essential as the manufacturers are concentrating on developing environmentally friendlier products (Vinodh et al. 2017). Electronics industry significantly contributes to the economic progress of a country (Singh et al. 2018b). The contemporary electronics manufacturers have been implementing sustainability principles to achieve improvements in ecological, financial and social aspects. The sustainability of processes/products needs to be concentrated to produce environmentally friendlier products. Tischner and Hora (2019) discussed that the need for sustainable electronic product design starts with demand and can be accomplished by exploring sustainable eco-efficient solutions. The authors stressed on usage of sustainable materials, reduction in energy consumption, design for recycling, and producing less toxic items. Recent studies have emphasised the applicability of sustainable design, manufacturing and disposal strategies for electronic products (Seker (2020); Ilbahar, Cebi, and Kahraman (2020) and Thomas (2020)).

There exists a critical need to deploy sustainable manufacturing to achieve the benefits of increased process efficiencies and also minimised environmental impact. This article presents an outlook on the trends of sustainable manufacturing in the electronics industry by a rigorous review of articles. The article also highlights the importance of sustainable manufacturing of electronics and research avenues associated with it.

Sustainable development is predominantly classified into material, process and system dimensions (Jayal et al. 2010). Latest studies reviewed sustainable product design and development (Hassan et al. 2016; Ahmad et al. 2018). Although the studies concentrated on eco-design tools and reviewed Triple-bottom line concept, studies on the electronic domain were scarcely discussed. Therefore, this article is targeted to present a comprehensive and generic review of state-of-the-art tools and case studies concerned with electronics product design and manufacturing.

Sustainability in the electronics industry is quite a matter of discussion. The subsequent sections focus on two prominent unresolved questions:

• What are the evolving research issues on sustainability and its application?

• What is the systematic framework for the deployment of sustainability in the field of electronics product design and manufacturing?

In finding out the past contributions to the topic and scope for sustainable manufacturing, literature on product, process and material orientations of sustainability and modelling of sustainable electronic products have been reviewed exclusively and discussed. This research investigates the application of sustainability in electronics product design and manufacturing with triple bottom line perspective. The objective of this study is to strengthen existing insights on literature pertaining to sustainable electronics product design and manufacturing. The review also emphasises important conclusions to researchers and practitioners in search of achieving understanding on the discussed themes and to facilitate obtaining future research directions.

The unique aspect of this article is that it presents a state-of-the-art review of sustainable design and manufacturing of electronic products. It presents a sustainable framework for the product design and manufacturing of electronic products.

Review methodology

This review executes an extensive literature survey on different aspects of sustainable manufacturing aligned with the scope of the research. The current review follows Systematic Literature Review (SLR) approach (Dewey and Drahota 2016). The review methodology depicted in (Figure 1) seeks relevant publication databases and searches using a comprehensive set of keywords related to sustainable manufacturing.

Figure 1. Review methodology

The search was restricted to sustainable manufacturing research articles about electronics manufacturing to present a complete review of the usage of sustainable manufacturing approach in the electronics sector. This literature review considered a specific time interval (2003–2020), to absorb the noteworthy advancements of sustainable manufacturing reported across various time horizons.

You et al. (2016) investigated ways to minimise environmental impacts of consumer electronic products through design. The authors devised design strategies such as material selection, disassembly design and eco labelling for developing sustainable consumer electronics products. They followed literature review, analyses and case studies.

Mathiyazhagan, Sengupta, and Mathivathanan (2019) conducted a systematic review and identified following challenges in electronics industry: short lifespan of electronic equipment leading to increased quantities, poor waste collection infrastructure, increased cost of crude resource recovery technologies, poor product design, improper regulatory and implementation frameworks, and unlawful export of e-waste to developing countries.

The number of publications for each year has increased sharply inline with the preceding year which indicates the growing interest of academicians and practitioners towards sustainable electronics product design and manufacturing. The major reason for the increasing interest can be stringent legislative policies and legislations, which limit the organisations to practice conventional processes.

Review on product orientation of sustainable electronics

In addition to standard cost and consumer requirements, environmentally conscious product design practices enable sustainability in industries by considering ecology and resources worldwide. Since the early 2000s, several studies reported sustainable product design. It is essential to re-examine such reports based on the experience and understanding and discover the direction in which research should proceed further. Chiu and Chu (2012) discussed a surfacing need for a logical method that can incorporate product, process, system and environmental scope while handling contradictory viewpoint of product development. Following are some important studies on sustainable development of electronics products.

Several studies such as Kaebernick, Kara,and, and Sun (2003), Masui et al. (2003), Lin et al. (2004), Sakao (2007), Bereketli, Genevois, and Ziya Ulukan (2009), Lee and Lin (2011), Wu and Ho (2015), Younesi and Roghanian (2015), Hassan et al. (2016) and Vinodh et al. (2017) analysed the application of QFD for sustainable electronics product design. The tool either used in its original form or integrated with other evaluation methods or problem-solving techniques is found to be most prominent method for sustainable electronics product design.

Other significant studies selected life cycle methods for sustainable electronics design. Gurauskienė and Varžinskas (2006), Wu et al. (2008), Yung et al. (2011), Moberg et al. (2014), Wang et al. (2015) and Andrae et al. (2016) used LCA solely or integrated with other techniques for sustainable electronic product design.

Iakovou et al. (2009), De Silva et al. (2009) deployed ranking methods for sustainable electronics product design. Van Erp et al. (2020) followed a critical problem-solving technique and developed a cooling technology to facilitate the additional miniaturisation of electronics and significantly minimising energy consumption. Eliminating the necessity for large outer heat sinks, the proposed approach facilitated the development of incredibly compact power converters incorporated on a single chip.

Review on the material orientation of sustainable electronics

Sustainable material selection is of greater importance in the contemporary manufacturing scenario, as it involves trade-offs among several measures including ecological aspects (Ljungberg 2007). The approach could enable the manufacturing of products with the reduction of impact on the environment, lower cost and minimise the resources utilisation. Material assessment plays an important part in product lifecycle and results in sustainable development. Irimia-Vladu (2014) emphasised the latest research developments in the material design of exceptional organic electronics devices. The research tried instigating ways for the manufacturing of eco-friendly electronic products which are inexpensive and energy-efficient and help in realising great functionalities. Following studies discussed the material orientation of sustainability concerning electronics product design and manufacturing.

Cao et al. (2006) Masanet and Horvath (2007), Chan and Tong (2007), Liu et al. (2014) Meyer and Katz (2016), Manjunatheshwara and Vinodh (2018) identified and assessed the sustainable criteria for material selection of electronic products. The alternatives were compared based on the selection criteria using MCDM, Grey decision-making and LCA methods.

Jahan et al. (2010) presented a review of material comparison and selection techniques. The authors found that MCDM techniques can significantly improve material selection methodology. Therefore, an MCDM could be applied for sustainable material selection.

Grey theory is a computational approach for system analysis to handle uncertainty (Li, Yamaguchi, and Nagai 2007). Prior studies applied Grey-based approach to solving MCDM problems with multiple criteria. However, the utilisation of Grey-based approach for material selection of electronics products needs to be explored further.

Review on process orientation of sustainable electronics

‘Process’ orientation of sustainable development is the significant cause of ecological damage (Culaba and Purvis 1999). It is affected mostly due to the utilisation of renewable resources, energy expenditure, effluents, and liquid, solid, and gaseous discharges. Negative environmental impacts are a direct result of these changes. Hence, the attention of researchers worldwide has focused towards the development of sustainable processes (Thiriez and Gutowski 2006).

Some significant studies that addressed process improvement include Andrae, Zou, and Liu (2004), Ahluwalia and Nema (2007), Duan et al. (2009), Noon, Lee, and Cooper (2011), Teehan and Kandlikar (2013), Zink et al. (2014), Chang, Lee, and Chen (2014), Elduque et al. (2014), Subramanian and Yung (2017). The studies utilised LCA for evaluation of processes and significantly followed ISO 14040 guidelines.

Liu, Tanaka, and Matsui (2009) demonstrated the economic assessment approach for the evaluation of classical recycling processes for different variants of waste Electronic Home Appliances (EHA) in China. Manual dismantling time and dismantled components flow were determined. Input and output material flows of recycling processes were mapped. Economic feasibility and profitability analysis for the management framework was done. The study intended to categorise the formal organisational framework with financial viability for discarded EHA in China.

Review on modelling for sustainable electronic products

Several critical concerns need to be tackled to realise how sustainable manufacturing can be achieved with the meticulousness of reason, focus, and objectives. Models of sustainable manufacturing concerning electronics have been demonstrated in different studies bridging the interactions between drivers, enablers, and resultants of sustainability. The studies of sustainability modelling concerning electronics product design and manufacturing have been discussed below.

Agus (2005), Mittal and Sangwan (2014), Sellitto and Hermann (2019) used SEM to postulate hypotheses among relevant constructs based on the structural relationships. The studies determined the strength of the relationships among constructs. The studies could support policymakers and practitioners in developing policies and strategies for the deployment of sustainable manufacturing.

Govindan et al. (2013), Tseng (2013), Singh et al. (2018b), Singhal, Tripathy, and Jena (2019) used ISM to perform a precise and complete analysis of criteria of electronics manufacturing. The straightforward visual analysis of the quadrant evaluation grid revealed benefits and drawbacks. The managerial inferences for resource allocation were depicted. Also, competitive spots were recognised, and further improvement strategies were presented. The method improved analysis using a linkage criteria quadrant. This allowed the management to concentrate on the criteria to fulfil eco necessities to advance their performance.

Ocampo and Clark (2015) developed a selection process of sustainable manufacturing initiatives with the US NIST-based evaluation framework using AHP. It was concluded from the prioritisation that, lean six sigma scheme ranked higher of all the sustainable manufacturing initiatives. The study enabled the appropriate distribution of resources of the semiconductor manufacturing firm and rapid progress of the firm to the needs of the sustainability.

Malek and Desai (2019) identified and prioritised the barriers of sustainable manufacturing using Best–Worst (BW) method. The authors categorised the barriers. The major social factors were requirement of awareness of consumers and need for corporate social and environmental responsibility. Less prominent factors were lack of consideration of human factors, fear of competitors taking advantage, lack of balance among environment, social and economic benefits, and resistance to culture change.

Singh et al. (2018a) developed a theoretical framework for the sustainable growth and development of electronics manufacturing industries. The authors identified political, economic, technological and social aspects influencing sustainable manufacturing.

Application of sustainable manufacturing to the electronics sector

Case studies and practical implementation

This section discusses case studies that used sustainability tools to achieve the desired benefits. Table 1 reviews significant case studies concerning the application of tools for sustainable electronics product design and production.

Table 1. Case studies on the usage of tools

Tool	Description	Product	Study
Linear optimisation and discrete-event simulation	A standard remanufacturing plan for mobile phones	Mobile phones	Seliger et al. (2004)
LCIA	Evaluation of environmental impacts	Computer monitors – CRT and LCD	Socolof, Overly, and Geibig (2005)
Linear optimisation model and discrete- event simulation	Remanufacturing	Mobile phones	Franke et al. (2006)
Analytical framework	Evaluation of benefits of DFR	Computer enclosures	Masanet and Horvath (2007)
LCA	E-waste management	Computers	Ahluwalia and Nema (2007)
Fuzzy logic	Selection of the ideal combination of mobile phone form elements to go with a certain product image	Mobile phones	Lin, Lai, and Yeh (2007)
LCA	Quantitative evaluation of eco-impacts of electronics	Mobile phones	Wu et al. (2008)
Review	Review of the global material flow, waste generation and management practices in Nigeria	Mobile phones and fixed landlines	Osibanjo and Nnorom (2008)
Eco-QFD	Eco-Design process of a mobile phone	Mobile phones	Bereketli, Genevois, and Ziya Ulukan (2009)
Survey	Recycling programme	Mobile phones	Nnorom, Ohakwe, and Osibanjo (2009)
LCA	Assessment of environmental performance	Desktop computer	Duan et al. (2009)
LCA	EoL management	Computer monitor	Noon, Lee, and Cooper (2011)
LCA	Energy and environmental impact assessment	Laptop computer	Deng, Babbitt, and Williams (2011)
Survey	Recycling	Mobile phones	Yin, Gao, and Xu (2014)
Simplified logistic function model	E-waste management	Computers and mobile phones	Rahmani et al. (2014)
Market supply A method, consumption and use approach and Sales & new method	Sustainable management system	Mobile phones	Li, Yang, Lu, Song (2015)
Survey	Recycling and reuse	Mobile phones	Ylä-Mella, Keiski, and Pongrácz (2015)
Fuzzy QFD	Product design	Mobile phones	Wu and Ho (2015)
EcoSmarT	Product design and innovation	Mobile phones	Andrae et al. (2016)
Fuzzy QFD	Prioritisation of initiatives for sustainability development	Consumer electronics	Vinodh et al. (2017)
Lifecycle based approach	Multi-objective product configuration design problems in view of inconsistent financial and eco objectives	Toner catridges	Badurdeen, Aydin, and Brown (2018)
Fuzzy QFD	Prioritise sustainable manufacturing improvement proposals	Electronic switches	Vimal, Vinodh, and Jayakrishna (2019)

Electronic products can be categorised into three major clusters based on their applications: Consumer electronics, Industrial electronics and automotive electronics. Consumer electronics primarily covers the complete variety of electronic devices, including sound systems, home automation, computing and low-power electronics to multimedia systems, to mainly accomplish or facilitate data processing and communication through electronics, together with display and transmission (Li, Zeng, Stevels, 2015). Andrae and Andersen (2010) carried out an extensive review of studies on LCA of consumer electronics including desktop computers and laptops, mobile phones and TVs, over the period 1997–2010. The authors concluded that the studies lacked transparency and resulted in difficulty in benchmarking. Van Heddeghem et al. (2014) emphasised the necessity for energy-efficiency research across different ICT categories such as communication networks, PCs, and data centres. The authors discussed the method of computing electricity usage in these categories. The study identified the necessity for energy efficiency research across all these domains. Li, Zeng, Stevels, (2015) presented a review of eco-design applicable to consumer electronics. The challenges listed by the authors included, higher demand for consumer electronics letting the resources down, increased demand for cleaner production, innovative materials and technologies offering new challenges for eco-design in production, utilisation and logistics phases, development of disassembly and remanufacturing policies, bridging the gap between different stakeholders. Hankammer et al. (2018) investigated the 3P (People, Profit, Planet) potential of modular and customisable smartphones. The authors determined that the customisation and modular properties could increase the product life cycle and influence socio-cultural product traits respectively.

From the studies, it can be noted that a significant number of studies until recent times were made on mobiles and PCs. However, there is a need for carrying out considerable research on other less focused consumer electronics like tablet devices, smartphones, smartwatches and other latest fast-moving gadgets. LCAs, energy efficiency analyses are essential to track and maintain electronics product sustainability.

Industrial electronics is an extensive professional field that comprises electronic control systems, industrial instrumentation and aerospace or medical technology. Transportation, security and telecommunications are also connected with industrial electronics. Sustainable product design, disassembly modelling and planning concerning industrial electronics products have been carried out. Extensive sustainability studies need to be conducted in the industrial electronics domain. Case studies of products similar to rotary switches and transformers need to be carried out. Similarly, sustainability in automotive electronics domain needs attention and there exists considerable scope for conducting sustainability studies of automotive electronics products.

Analysis of tools

This section presents the analysis of tools for sustainable design and manufacturing of electronics products. LCA is the most common tool. MCDM techniques have also been used significantly in eco-conscious production and product recovery of electronic products (Ilgin, Gupta, and Battaïa 2015). However, there is a need to see whether these tools focus on different phases of the product life cycle. Studies also integrate different techniques to achieve varied objectives. Table 2 reviews tools used across different life cycle phases for sustainable electronics product design and manufacturing.

Table 2. Tools used for different life cycle phases

Tool	Life cycle phase/s	Study
Linear optimisation and discrete-event simulation	EoL	Seliger et al. (2004)
LCIA	Cradle to Gate, Usage, EoL	Socolof, Overly, and Geibig (2005)
Linear optimisation model and discrete event simulation	EoL	Franke et al. (2006)
Analytical framework	EoL	Masanet and Horvath (2007)
LCA	EoL	Ahluwalia and Nema (2007)
Fuzzy logic	Design and manufacturing	Lin, Lai, and Yeh (2007)
LCA	EoL	Wu et al. (2008)
Review of material flow, waste generation and management practices	EoL	Osibanjo and Nnorom (2008)
Eco-QFD	Design and manufacturing	Bereketli, Genevois, and Ziya Ulukan (2009)
Survey	EoL	Nnorom, Ohakwe, and Osibanjo (2009)
LCA	EoL	Duan et al. (2009)
LCA	EoL	Noon, Lee, and Cooper (2011)
LCA	EoL	Deng, Babbitt, and Williams (2011)
Survey	EoL	Yin, Gao, and Xu (2014)
Simplified logistic function model	EoL	Rahmani et al. (2014)
Market supply A method, consumption and utilisation approach, and Sales and new method	EoL	Li, Yang, Lu, Song (2015)
Survey	EoL	Ylä-Mella, Keiski, and Pongrácz (2015)
Fuzzy QFD	Design and manufacturing	Wu and Ho (2015)
EcoSmarT	Design and manufacturing	Andrae et al. (2016)
Fuzzy QFD	Design and manufacturing	Vinodh et al. (2017)
Life cycle–based approach	EoL	Badurdeen, Aydin, and Brown (2018)
Fuzzy QFD	Design and manufacturing	Vimal, Vinodh, and Jayakrishna (2019)

Design and manufacturing and EoL analysis have been widely covered in the studies. This gate-grave approach could be further expanded to cradle-cradle approach to achieve better results of sustainability.

Framework for sustainable electronic product development

A generic framework has been developed by the authors for sustainable electronic product development based on the literature review with insights for improvements across three pillars economy, environment and society.

The framework for developing sustainable electronic products, as shown in Figure 2, incorporates sustainability policies into product development to assure green benefits along with operational advantages. A standard set of sustainable electronics criteria and sustainability tools are considered under each level of implementation and step-by-step procedure directs appropriate deployment of sustainable design and manufacturing. Implementation of framework necessitates training to employees, a safer working environment, product safety and cost-benefit analysis to enhance company’s societal and economic performance. The conceptualised framework will be useful for managers to measure the sustainability effects of the entire processes and products during sustainability execution such that both operational and sustainability benefits are attained.

Figure 2. Proposed sustainable electronics product design and manufacturing framework

The sequential steps of the proposed framework are as follows:

Problem definition: Define objective, list significant enablers, criteria and attributes to set the benchmark

Modelling: Establish interrelationship among various factors of sustainable electronics manufacturing

Suggested Tools: ISM, SEM

Prioritisation: Three orientations Product, Process, Material dimensions of sustainability are prioritised based on Environmental, Economy and Social criteria.

Suggested Tools: MCDM techniques

Implementation: Implementation in the order of prioritised three orientations

Suggested Tools: Product orientation

• ECQFD for design

• DfE guidelines application

Material orientation

• Multi-objective modelling techniques for material selection

Process orientation

• Energy efficiency assessment

• LCA and disassembly for process improvement

Evaluation: Effects of the implementation must be assessed in terms of sustainability criteria and benchmark data

The framework has to be validated over a series of case studies for electronics products of different categories and has to be improved substantially.

Important findings and discussions

Analysing the outcomes articulated from sustainable manufacturing of electronics gives an idea that ecological impact minimisation and financial benefits dominate over societal aspects. However, the information on the means to attain these improvements remains less explored.

Sustainable design framework necessitates significant amendments in managerial and operational dealings. Product systems are remarkably interconnected to each other and form a complex network which is most difficult for the product development team to sort out. Performance, cost, legal and cultural aspects should be effectively dealt with product designs to pursue sustainable development objectives effectively. Environmental objectives cannot be achieved separately without these factors. Approaches to minimise ecological impediments of a product system are commonly familiar to the designers. The critical challenge in product design is to select policies and merge them into designs that convince the full range of necessities.

Material selection for electronics products is a complex process which demands competence in different areas such as manufacturing, design, administration, and marketing. Material selection usually involves a high amount of trade-offs among several deciding attributes.

The deployment of sustainable manufacturing policies would enable the minimisation of the environmental burden of sustainable electronics manufacturing processes. However, it is almost unrealistic to incorporate all the identified policies as it involves considerable effort, cost and time. The higher level management may not acknowledge the allocation of supplementary man-hours towards the incorporation of sustainable strategies. Sustainable manufacturing measures including environment, economic and social dimensions of sustainability must be identified from the viewpoint of electronics manufacturing. Sustainable manufacturing strategies based on electronics manufacturing process needs to be developed. Modelling, evaluation and deployment of sustainable strategies for electronics manufacturing need to be studied.

Process selection enables the practitioners to understand current process characteristics and opens up the prospectus of the possible improvement areas. There exists a need for the studies indicating practical relevance towards improvement. Development of a unique model to evaluate process could be crucial in the sustainable development of electronics products. The practitioners must seek to evaluate their process level using a logical model.

Devising a structured theory for the deployment of sustainability in manufacturing electronics products

The accomplishment of sustainable electronics manufacturing could be a result of the ability to organise a complex regulatory process that integrates and deploy multiple variations of three orientations. The mutual understanding among diverse experts about sustainable electronics as a practice allows the personnel to develop and plan more efficient and steady processes collectively. The structured theory could make the detection of variations much easier and enable the practitioners to take action. The concept affects workplace culture and thus facilitates advancement. The developments can be instituted correctly through training and steady structures for continual improvement which reverberates through the clear and concrete exhibition by the administration that everyone is accountable for improvement.

Improving the application of sustainability in manufacturing electronics products

It is demonstrated by many practical case studies that sustainable manufacturing creates value to the customers and stakeholders by instigating improvements along product, process and material orientations. Sustainability as a manufacturing strategy is an effective way of product synthesis which is also important among all available advanced manufacturing philosophies. And sustainable manufacturing strategy, which focuses on economy, society and environment, is an emerging area in electronics which has to be focused upon more in the years to come.

Initiatives must be taken to integrate electronics manufacturing with sustainability to ensure the practitioners are taking improvements along product, process and material orientations. Concerning prior research studies accomplished by various researchers, it is evident that the sustainable electronics product design and manufacturing approach is conducive towards achieving improvements across three pillars of sustainability. Combining sustainability strategies with electronics manufacturing would serve as a dominant platform to minimise environmental waste and improve societal and economic aspects also. An effective integration would enable competitive industry practice by minimising environmental impacts (You et al. 2016). It would involve the workforce to categorise and implement sustainability improvement authoritarian measures. Design and manufacturing strategies with sustainability insights stress upon improving business effectiveness and reduce emissions, energy consumption and other associated impacts.

The current study presents an idea of modelling sustainable system of electronics and provides an overview of ways to overcome the challenges systematically through a conceptual framework by sustainability modelling and improvements across product, process and material orientations. The performance assessment enables practitioners to take feedback over the trial and provides avenue for improvement.

Conclusions

The deployment of sustainable manufacturing practices for design of electronic products is evidently surfacing within the industry. The study by Khan et al. (2017) indicated that per capita income, manufacturing and service share to GDP are affected by CO₂ and GHG emissions. Thus, sustainable manufacturing is an important concept in the modern manufacturing scenario. It involves threefold benefit across the economy, environment and societal dimensions. A total of 57 papers are being reviewed. The review carried out from four perspectives such as product design, material selection, process improvement and modelling indicated the gap in sustainable manufacturing of electronics research and the potential research avenues of sustainable manufacturing of electronics. The conventional trial and error method for material selection may not be appropriate in the current situation since it involves higher cost and time. Therefore, it is essential to choose the right technique. It is understood from the literature that there remains a necessity for the development of an inclusive assessment model of process selection in the context of electronics production process to highlight ecological responsiveness, individual well-being and energy preservation. Sustainability modelling in electronics manufacturing is vital as implementing sustainable manufacturing concept is a significant initiative through which the effectiveness of triple bottom line can be evaluated. The qualitative method is appropriate for the computation of composite sustainability index. It can be concluded from the analysis of tools that LCA is a significant and diversified tool used in electronics product development and has been applied for conception, component and process designs, and assessment.

QFD has been extensively used as a design tool. Eco concern QFD variants such as QFDE and ECQFD have been applied in different case studies, and fuzzy logic has been integrated with QFD to tackle ambiguity in case information.

Based on the review, a framework for the sustainable development of electronic products has been developed. The proposed framework would enable manufacturers to design sustainable electronics products. The proposed framework would support the practitioners to systematically analyse the influential factors and apply appropriate techniques in priority order for facilitating sustainable performance improvement. Insights for practitioners are also presented.

Practical implications

The study supports electronics component manufacturing organisations that are in the primary stages of applying sustainable manufacturing concepts by providing essential understanding and ensure them a well ordered performance drive. The attempt would minimise the ambiguity of the managers about the credibility of such tools and direct them to choose the suitable ones. The productivity achieved using these tools demonstrate their practicality in the applications. The selection of a suitable tool is vital to attain the best result.

Future research directions

The insights achieved based on different perspectives are not decisive as the research expands. Further significant outcomes are projected to transpire that lead to diverse future research directions. The significant points to take out from this work for practice are as follows: Metrics for evaluating the impact of sustainable manufacturing of electronic products is affluent. The foremost indicators must be utilised to lead the future work. The noteworthy activity of sustainable manufacturing of electronics components must be documented by industry practitioners or academicians. Practitioners must gain from the use of this literature.

Study limitations

The practical review approach is valuable but challenging. Classification of studies based on orientations was difficult due to the ambiguous study designs or effect measures. The stumpy number of studies explicit to a definite setting, inadequate data, and inconsistency in expressions, tools and techniques used, made it tough to categorise the finest aspects of sustainable manufacturing.

Sustainable manufacturing improvement strategies that produce holistic benefits across its three pillars – people, planet and profit – have been rarely studied for its applications in electronics industries. Sustainable manufacturing lacks a structured practice approach. Guidelines and standard operating procedures could be prepared to help practitioners. Exclusive tools/techniques of sustainable manufacturing could be extended for ensuring applications in the electronics industries. To ensure the benefits of sustainable manufacturing application to electronics industries, performance indicators could be identified. Also, an inclusive sustainable manufacturing model needs to be developed.

Acknowledgments

This publication is an outcome of the R&D work undertaken project under the Visvesvaraya PhD Scheme of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, being implemented by Digital India Corporation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

KJ Manjunatheshwara

K. J. Manjunatheshwara completed his PhD from Production Engineering Department of National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India. He received his Masters in Industrial Engineering from Production Engineering Department, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu. His area of research interest is sustainable manufacturing.

S Vinodh

S. Vinodh is an Associate Professor in Production Engineering Department of National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India. He completed his PhD from PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, India. He was a gold medalist in his undergraduate and post graduate studies. He has been awarded Highly Commended Paper award and Outstanding Paper Award by Emerald publishers, UK, for the year 2009 and 2011. He has published over 100 papers in international journals and in proceedings of the leading national and international conferences. His research interests include agile, lean and sustainable systems and multi-criteria decision making.