A three dimensional system approach for environmentally sustainable manufacturing

Sustainable manufacturing has received enormous attention in recent years as an effective solution to support the continuous growth and expansion of manufacturing industry. In this paper, we present a three dimensional system approach for sustainable manufacturing from environmental perspective. This method attempts to address the sustainability issues of manufacturing from a pollution prevention standpoint, considering the three key components of manufacturing: technology, energy, and material. Case study is performed on an emerging nano-manufacturing technology, atomic layer deposition. This system approach, when appropriately adopted, could be useful in real sustainable manufacturing practices for overall sustainability management and improvement. (C) 2012 CIRP.