A framework for interoperable sustainable manufacturing process analysis applications development

Sustainable manufacturing (SM) continues to grow in importance. However, analysis tools to assess the sustainability performance of SM processes are difficult to verify and validate. Additionally, the ability to share and reuse SM information is hampered by a lack of (1) standards to represent that information, (2) interoperability among the engineering applications that use that information, and (3) consistency across the current approaches for modeling that information. This paper focuses on an integrated approach required to address these limitations, proposing a framework that will enable sustainable manufacturing process analysis applications to be developed by manufacturers. The framework will facilitate the developing of analysis platforms and sustainable manufacturing information models by enabling the integration of simulation and optimization model components to analyze processes at different operational levels. An example is provided to illustrate the framework.