Responsible Manufacturing

Book excerpt: Responsible Manufacturing has become an obligation to the environment and to society itself, enforced primarily by customer perspective and governmental regulations on environmental issues. This is mainly driven by the escalating deterioration of the environment, such as diminishing raw material resources, overflowing waste sites, and increasing levels of pollution. Responsible Manufacturing related issues have found a large following in industry and academia, which aim to find solutions to the problems that arise in this newly emerged research area. Problems are widespread, including the ones related to the lifecycle of products, disassembly, material recovery, remanufacturing, and pollution prevention. Organized into sixteen chapters, this book provides a foundation for academicians and practitioners, and addresses several important issues faced by strategic, tactical, and operation planners of Responsible Manufacturing. Using efficient models in a variety of decision-making situations, it provides easy-to-use mathematical and/or simulation modeling-based solution methodologies for the majority of the issues. Features Addresses a variety of state-of-the-art issues in Responsible Manufacturing Highlights how popular industrial engineering and operations research techniques can be effectively exploited to find the most effective solutions to problems Presents how a specific issue can be approached or modeled in a given decision-making situation Covers strategic, tactical, and operational systems issues Provides a foundation for academicians and practitioners interested in building bodies of knowledge in this new and fast-growing area