(685a) Process and Supply Chain Design: Sustainability Metrics and Structural Considerations

The design of sustainable manufacturing processes and supply chains is rapidly becoming a critical issue, because of the need to provide for the needs of a growing human population which is increasingly prosperous across the globe. To address this growing issue, we review the most important elements of sustainability science including relevant sustainability criteria and metrics that can be used to assess sustainability. It is notable that there approximately six critical processes that must be maintained for sustainability to be possible. These represent energy resources, land use, energy efficiency, economic strength, human well-being, and system stability. We also discuss the importance of process and supply structures which is an often-overlooked aspect of process and supply chain design, and we discuss the application of the P-graph framework. This can be used to generate easily a large number of feasible structures which can then be assessed for sustainability. We illustrate the application of these ideas with examples of energy generation processes and supply chains.[1]

[1] Cabezas, H., Argoti, A., Friedler, F., Mizsey, P, and J.P. Pimentel, “Design and Engineering of Sustainable Process Systems and Supply Chains by the P-Graph Framework,” Env. Prog. Sust. Energy, in press. DOI: 10.1002/ep.12763.