Sustainability indicators for discrete manufacturing processes applied to grinding technology

• Sustainability indicators are a simple and affordable method to assess sustainability in manufacturing systems.
• Relevant sustainability indicators are selected and different means of normalization are discussed.
• The paper shows different ways to display sustainability indicators in performance profiles.
• Utility analysis allows condensing several indicators into one sustainability indicator for easier comparison of different processes or manufacturing systems.
• The indicators and utility analysis method are applied for case study on grinding processes.

As environmental and social awareness in production engineering rises, sustainability in discrete manufacturing processes has to be controlled better and enhanced. Sustainability indicators offer a simple and affordable solution for quickly assessing sustainability; however, they have been employed rarely on the process level. This study selects simple and relevant sustainability indicators and discusses different means of normalization. The sustainability indicators can be displayed as a performance profile, which is individual to each manufacturing process variant. In addition, the indicators can be simplified to one sustainability indicator through a utility analysis allowing for a quick comparison between different process variants. The whole procedure is executed with a grinding process case study. This work provides a straightforward method for evaluating sustainability of discrete manufacturing processes.