Development of sustainable manufacturing indicators focusing on human work and environment

Over the last few years, sustainability has become a major challenge for manufacturing systems, due to the rising awareness of the impact of their activities on the environment, society and economy. In order to measure the sustainability of a product, process or company, metrics for sustainable manufacturing were developed and proposed in the scientific literature. This paper proposes a set of indicators for sustainable manufacturing evaluation focusing on human work and environment. More in detail, human work-related indicators arise from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, while environmental indices derive from an industrial case. Results provide a basis for decision-making, and are expected to be incorporated into the companies’ sustainable strategies.