Citation
Vieira De Sá, J.C., Silva, F.J.G., Dinis-Carvalho, J. and McDermott, O. (2024), "Guest editorial: Green and sustainable lean practices", Technological Sustainability, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 233-236. https://doi.org/10.1108/TECHS-08-2024-058
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited
Sustainability is a critical issue that dominates today’s agenda, significantly influencing public opinion and shaping political trends. Sustainability is so vital that, for many, it is seen as the way to prevent the extinction of many species, including our own or at least to avoid the degradation of the quality of life as we know it. For this reason, it is one of the most discussed topics by academia, governments and businesses around the world today, largely due to the global challenges posed to every public and private institution and organization (Marotta et al., 2021). Although several countries have already set environmental targets to reduce emissions and consumption, unfortunately, many organizations have not yet committed to adopting sustainable practices and technologies (Barth and Melin, 2018). To combat this problem, various solutions have been presented at international conferences, in scientific publications and in government commissioned reports to help organizations achieve sustainability in its three dimensions: environmental, social and economic (Triple Bottom Line). These solutions include the adoption of Sustainable technologies and management models that allow companies to reduce their environmental impact and contribute to improving their economic and social development.
In this issue we focus upon Lean philosophy which is concerned with improving the efficiency of organizations by reducing their operational waste (muda), thus helping to increase profit margins. One might posit that this philosophy has environmental implications, given that one of its core tenets is the elimination of any form of waste. Waste, in this context, is defined as any element that exceeds the strictly necessary to produce a given product or service.
Green philosophy focuses on the fact that it incorporates the analysis of environmental waste and presents sustainable technologies and practices that help to improve the environmental performance of organizations. Thus, many sustainable methods and technologies have been developed with the aim of helping organizations reduce the harmful effects of production processes, thereby contributing to the improvement of the social dimension of organizations.
This Special Issue presents a set of articles that focus on cutting-edge research carried out or underway in the field of sustainable technologies and practices, as well as new management theories and practices. This issue enables the dissemination and showcasing of what the scientific community is doing in this field and demonstrates how organizations are reacting to this challenge. Benchmarking and sharing of examples of successful sustainability initiatives and their progress across all global sector types is essential for those pursuing a sustainability agenda. Here is a synopsis of the papers in the issue:
A surge in construction industry projects has been accompanied by persistent challenges in this industry. The paper by Moshood et al. (2024) aims to identify the factors that have hindered the adoption of lean practices in the construction sector.
Osmanovic et al. (2024) review the phenomenon – uncaptured value – as a missing link in sustainable business model innovation with the aim of exploring the way to transforming it into novel value creation thereby to promote innovation, sustainability and inclusion practices.
Elsewhere, Eriksson (2024) examine the integration of production practices and Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies. Their research aims to explore and explain how these two elements can coexist to improve the human-centered perspective of manufacturing operations in the context of Industry 5.0 (I5.0).
According to Humphries et al. (2024), maintaining human safety is one of the main concerns in factories where humans coexist with robots and other physical tools. Normally, the area around robots is monitored with lasers but lasers cannot distinguish between human and non-human objects in the robot’s path. Therefore the authors suggest the use of computer vision as a substitute for lasers.
A literature review carried out by Mohd Aripin et al. (2024) shows that implementation of lean manufacturing has resulted in 90% failure rate within 10 years. Accordingly their research aims to find out which strategies manufacturers need to undertake in order to prevent such failure.
And last but not least, Tetteh-Caesar et al. (2024) critically analyze some pharmaceutical industry case studies on the implementation of Lean 4.0 methodologies with the aim of providing guidance to improve quality, compliance, efficiency and responsiveness in manufacturing processes and the supply chain.
It can be observed that the issue encompasses papers with different topics and from different parts of the world which demonstrates the necessity of due attention to the contents of this special issue – Green and Sustainable Lean Practices. The editors of this special issue would like to thank the authors for their contributions.
References
Barth, H. and Melin, M. (2018), “A Green Lean approach to global competition and climate change in the agricultural sector – a Swedish case study”, Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 204, pp. 183-192, doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.09.021.
Eriksson, K.M. (2024), “Beyond lean production practices and Industry 4.0 technologies toward the human-centric Industry 5.0”, Technological Sustainability, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 286-308, doi: 10.1108/TECHS-11-2023-0049.
Humphries, J., Van de Ven, P., Amer, N., Nandeshwar, N. and Ryan, A. (2024), “Managing safety of the human on the factory floor: a computer vision fusion approach”, Technological Sustainability, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 309-331, doi: 10.1108/TECHS-12-2023-0054.
Marotta, I., Guarino, F., Longo, S. and Cellura, M. (2021), “Environmental sustainability approaches and positive energy districts: a literature review”, Sustainability, Vol. 13 No. 23, 13063, doi: 10.3390/su132313063.
Mohd Aripin, N., Nawanir, G., Hussain, S. and Moshood, T.D. (2024), “Towards sustainable lean success: a systematic literature review on critical failure factors”, Technological Sustainability, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 332-353, doi: 10.1108/TECHS-11-2023-0042.
Moshood, T.D., Rotimi, J.O., Shahzad, W. and Salimon, M.G. (2024), “Enhancing infrastructure project delivery through lean construction: opportunities, challenges and implementation strategies”, Technological Sustainability, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 237-261, doi: 10.1108/TECHS-11-2023-0041.
Osmanovic, S., Barth, H. and Ulvenblad, P. (2024), “Uncaptured value in sustainable business model innovation: the missing link”, Technological Sustainability, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 262-285, doi: 10.1108/TECHS-02-2024-0010.
Tetteh-Caesar, M.G., Gupta, S., Salonitis, K. and Jagtap, S. (2024), “Implementing Lean 4.0: a review of case studies in pharmaceutical industry transformation”, Technological Sustainability, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 354-372, doi: 10.1108/TECHS-02-2024-0012.
About the authors
José Carlos Vieira De Sá is currently Assistant Professor at the School of Engineering (ISEP) at the Polytechnic of Porto (Portugal), having commenced teaching in higher education in 2006. He has a Ph.D. degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering, an MSc degree in Industrial Engineering and a Bachelor’s Degree in Production Engineering, by University of Minho, Portugal. He has over 20 years (1998–2020) of experience in industrial companies, having held the positions of Quality and Continuous Improvement Manager, Production Manager and Safety. He later transitioned to a consulting and training role in several industrial companies, focusing on the same topics. In July 2015, he is awarded by the Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo, after public examination, the Title of Specialist in Quality. He is Member of the “Editorial Advisory Board of Technological Sustainability” and “Editorial Board for Safety” and has published over 100 papers (ISI + SCOPUS) on Quality Management, Safety, Sustainability and Lean Six Sigma.
Francisco J. G. Silva is Dr Habil, Ph.D., MSc and BSc in Mechanical Engineering by FEUP and ISEP (Portugal). He is Post-Graduated in Materials and Manufacturing. He is currently Head of the Mechanical Engineering Research Center at ISEP, Polytechnic of Porto. He also was Head of the Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering of ISEP (2014–2022) and Head of the Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering at ESEIG, Polytechnic of Porto (2003–2006). He has supervised more than 10 Ph.D. students in FEUP and UA (Portugal), and in Univ. of Vigo (Spain), as well as more than 200 MSc. students at ISEP and co-supervised more than 80 MSc students at ISEP and FEUP. He has more than 300 papers (ISI + SCOPUS) and 17 international books published, as well as several book chapters. He has coordinated several research projects in co-promotion with companies. He has reviewed more than 800 papers, being Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor and Editorial Board Member of more than 12 indexed international journals. He has also led more than 30 Special Issues in WoS journals.
José Dinis-Carvalho is Associate Professor at the University of Minho. He has a degree in Production Engineering in 1989 at the University of Minho. He has an MSc degree in Computer Integrated Manufacturing in 1992 at Loughborough University and has received a Ph.D. degree at the University of Nottingham in 1997 on Scheduling and Process Planning Integration. Main research interests are in Lean Approaches to any type of operating environment such as industry, hospitals, construction, offices, design, teaching, etc. The development of pull flow methods to be applied in complex production environments is an important area of research at the moment. Another important area of study is on how to create Stable and Sustainable Continuous Improvement systems. Other research interests are Teamwork, Scrum and Active Learning approaches in engineering education.
Dinis Carvalho has participated in numerous scientific projects with external funding where we highlight the “Continental FOF Project” carried out with Continental Antennas and which is related to the development of an innovative system of production planning and control. He also leads the project “HOMLean - Hospital Operations Management: a Lean Healthcare Framework” and participated in other projects such as the “Easy Ride - Experience is Everything” with the company Bosch. The main project at the moment is a project in Smart Retail with Sonae company, funded by PRR program.
In terms of publications, he authored the book “Continuous Improvement in Organizations” published by River Publishers, and published more than 100 scientific articles listed on Scopus and Web of Knowledge.
Dr Olivia McDermott is Associate Professor in Regulatory Affairs & Operational Excellence at the University of Galway in Ireland. She holds a Ph.D. degree in Lean & Six Sigma in Supply Chain Management from the University of Middlesex. She has an MBA degree from the University of Limerick and an M.Sc. degree in Quality Engineering from the University of Galway. She completed her post-doctoral research at the University of Limerick in Lean in Healthcare. She is also FETAC Certified Trainer, American Society of Quality (ASQ) Certified Black Belt, and Certified Management & Business Educator (CMBE). Her research interests are Quality 4.0, Industry 4.0, Lean, Six Sigma and Operational Excellence. She has published and co-authored over 110 journal articles since 2021 and has received several awards for her published work. She is also Member of the Editorial Advisory Boards and Editorial Review Boards of several international Operational Excellence journals.