Achieving Sustainable Production through Increased Utilization of Production Resources

Paper in proceeding, 2011

There seems to be a quite divergent view on sustainable production, mainly based on the perspective applied. From a global perspective, every kind of material consumption and growth is basically unwanted and should be minimized. This reflects in economic sustainability parameters that point towards producing as little as possible and social parameters pointing at eliminating abuse of human rights etc. On the other hand, international summits on sustainability have stated that it is a human right to have a certain standard of living, which implies increase in production but with less resource consumption. This global perspective is however not very helpful when focusing on more local level, for example Swedish manufacturing industry. To achieve a long-term job security the manufacturing companies need to be long-term prosperous. Further, to be able to maintain profitability levels, manufacturing companies need to continuously increase productivity. Utilization deals with using production equipment in a cost efficient way and this article will highlight how utilization affects different aspects of sustainable production, the link between utilization and productivity, as well as practical considerations when improving utilization in manufacturing industry.