Environmentally benign manufacturing: Observations from Japan,Europe and the United States
Institution:
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 35-234, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA;2. University of Texas at Austin, Center for Energy and Environmental Resources (R7100), 10100 Burnet Road, Building 133, Austin, TX 78758, USA;3. University of Texas at Austin, Department of Chemical Engineering, Austin, TX 78712-1062, USA;4. USEPA Headquarters, Ariel Rios Building, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington D.C. 20460, USA;5. Georgia Institute of Technology, Systems Realization Laboratory, Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Atlanta, GA 30332-0405, USA;6. University of Alabama/MCTC, 106 Bevill Building., 7th Avenue, P.O. Box 870201, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0201, USA;7. McKinsey & Company, Inc., 111 Congress Avenue, Suite 2100, Austin, TX 78701, USA;8. Michigan Technological University, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 1400 Townsend Dr. Houghton, MI 49931, USA;9. University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, 117 Transportation B, MC 238, 104 S. Mathews, Urbana, IL 61801, USA;10. Bradley University, 413-D College of Engineering, Environment, Sustainability, and Innovation, 1501 W. Bradley Avenue Peoria, IL 61625, USA;1. Joint German-Australia Research Group on Sustainable Manufacturing and Life Cycle Engineering (JGARG);2. Sustainable Manufacturing and Life Cycle Engineering Research Group, School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia;3. Sustainable Manufacturing and Life Cycle Engineering Research Group, Institute of Machine Tools and Production Technology (IWF), Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany;1. University of Grenoble Alpes, G-SCOP, F-38000, Grenoble, France;2. CNRS, G-SCOP Laboratory, F-38000, Grenoble, France;1. Utrecht University, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, The Netherlands;2. Wageningen University, Department of Economics, The Netherlands;1. Department of Energy, Systems, Territory and Constructions Engineering, University of Pisa, Italy;2. Department of Industrial and Production Engineering, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh;3. Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Parma, Italy;1. State Key Laboratory of Mechanical Transmission, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400030, China;2. College of Mechanical Engineering, Chongqing University of Technology, Chongqing, 400050, China
Abstract:
A recent international panel study (Gutowski T, Murphy C, Allen D, Bauer D, Bras B, Piwonka T, Sheng P, Sutherland J, Thurston D, Wolff E. WTEC Panel Report on: Environmentally Benign Manufacturing (EBM), 2000 on the web at; http://itri.loyola.edu/ebm/ and http://www.wtec.org/ebm/) finds Environmentally Benign Manufacturing (EBM) emerging as a significant competitive dimension between companies. With differing views on future developments, companies, especially large international companies, are positioning themselves to take advantage of emerging environmental trends. Among Japanese companies visited, the panel observed an acute interest in using the environmental advantages of their products and processes to enhance their competitive position in the market. In the northern European countries visited, the panel saw what could be interpreted as primarily a protectionist posture; that is, the development of practices and policies to enhance the well-being of EU countries, that could act as barriers to outsiders. In the U.S., the panel found a high degree of environmental awareness among the large international companies, most recently in response to offshore initiatives, mixed with skepticism. In this article, we survey EBM practices at leading firms, rate the competitiveness of the three regions visited, and close with observations of change since the study. Based upon these results, major research questions are then posed. In sum, the study found evidence that U.S. firms may be at a disadvantage due in part to a lack of coherent national goals in such areas as waste management, global warming, energy efficiency and product take back.
