A holistic and rapid sustainability assessment tool for manufacturing SMEs

Danfang Chen*, Sebastian Thiede, Timo Schudeleit, Christoph Herrmann

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

60 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Sustainable development is a broad term and is complex in nature because it has three dimensions. While continuous management is necessary, especially for SMEs, there is a lack of easily applicable tools that assess the status of sustainability based on key performance indicators and that derive priorities for systematic improvement. Based on this information, this paper presents a holistic sustainability assessment tool for manufacturing SMEs. The tool is applicable on a factory level with reasonable effort, provides decision support for improvements and enables a cross-industry comparison. A case study at a Swedish company has been performed to verify the usability.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)437-440
JournalCIRP annals : manufacturing technology
Volume63
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Sustainable development
  • Tool
  • Assessment

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'A holistic and rapid sustainability assessment tool for manufacturing SMEs'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this