Sustainable Manufacturing: An Interaction Analysis for Machining Parameters using Graph Theory

Sustainable Manufacturing (SM) requires strategic attention in today's competitive environment owing to dependence of many organizations on natural resources along with generation of wastes and environmental pollution. The adoption of SM in itself poses huge challenge for the practitioners since the extant literature does not provide a standard framework for the implementation of the same. It has thus become the need of the time for the manufacturers to pursue production activities, which internalizes negative environmental externalities while maximizing business goals and socio-economic benefits. Typically, manufacturing processes can broadly be classified into five categories such as such as casting, forming, powder metallurgy, joining and machining. The study focuses on machining group wherein; the interdependencies of different sustainable machining parameters are examined in the context of milling and turning machining processes. In order to ensure competitiveness in the field of manufacturing, there must be a balance between economic, environmental and social dimensions. Hence, a complex web of interdependencies is formed in between the parameters affecting the end result of a metal cutting process form. In this work, a structure on the network of parameters has been imposed by applying graph-based modularity analysis. The understanding in form of parameterized relationships between various interacting factors helps in the application of powerful heuristic tools such as expert systems to be implemented. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.