Green and Environment Conscious Manufacturing and Management Techniques

Contemporary industry is beginning to realize the negative impact that they have on the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, destruction of natural habitats, hazardous waste emissions, etc. This new found consciousness has prompted a second look on part of the manufactures at how modern manufacturing practices can be modified so as to be more environmentally friendly.  Environmental impact of manufacturing can be minimized in various ways. In this context, management is often called upon to provide active leadership in managing their facilities so as to minimize their environmental impact.  Some examples of such activities include green supply chains and design for disassembly.  Such activities help to create a closed loop product lifecycle that is required to reduce the amount of raw material used and the amount of waste created by production. Similarly using design for manufacturability principles aid in the minimization of raw material used and waste generated as well.   Also, facilities are starting to move away from reactive approaches to environmental issues.  They are now using proactive approaches and value seeking approaches where the environmental issues are dealt with before they are created.  This paper presents an overview of environment conscious manufacturing practices that seek to minimize the negative environmental impact of manufacturing. Being a literature review, this paper primarily deals with state of the art in current practice pertaining to green manufacturing.