Assessment of lean and green strategies by simulation of manufacturing systems in discrete production environments

Manufacturing is a resource-intensive and costly endeavor, yet the impacts of implementing a combination of lean and green practices in a manufacturing facility can hardly be forecasted and have typically been simulated, optimized, and valuated independently. This paper identifies an approach for incorporating both lean and green strategies into a manufacturing system; from data collection to the valuation of a system. Furthermore, a case study is presented of part production in the automotive sector, in which the implementation of a tailored combination of lean and green strategies resulted in the reduction of approximately 10.8% of the production costs of a representative part. (c) 2013 CIRP.