Title: Sustainability as a driver of operational excellence - the relevance of variability in process operations

Authors: Daniela Silva; Américo Azevedo

Addresses: INESC TEC, Campus da Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal ' INESC TEC, Campus da Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal

Abstract: Sustainable development is a widely spread concept nowadays, especially due to external pressure related to environmental and social issues, affecting all players of the supply chain. Sustainable policies must be adopted, such as improving process performance and reducing waste. With sustainability as a driver of operational excellence, this study is focused on the improvement of the production process of a company by reducing variability. A variability analysis was done to understand its root causes and act upon them, as well as a quantification of waste in the process. Finally, an improvement plan was delineated to mitigate the problems identified.

Keywords: variability; lead-time; industrial production; waste quantification; operational excellence; sustainable standards; process operations.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISM.2020.107850

International Journal of Integrated Supply Management, 2020 Vol.13 No.2/3, pp.210 - 233

Received: 28 Mar 2019
Accepted: 08 Aug 2019
Published online: 25 Jun 2020 *

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