Quantifying green manufacturability of a unit production process using simulation

Consumer awareness towards environment and sustainability is on the rise, which is forcing industry to face the challenge of balancing economic and monetary priorities against environmental and social accountabilities. New methods and techniques are being developed to cater these challenges in an efficient way. This work aims to develop a roadmap to convert a unit manufacturing process more 'green' by minimizing resource utilization. Live laboratory experiments were conducted to model various factors influencing the 'greenness' of the unit process which was surface grinding. We evaluated various control strategies (factor settings) using ABC algorithm, implemented in a numerical simulation mode. The experimental data suggested significant improvement on the Green Index of the process. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.