Browsing by Author "Evans, Steve"

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    Designing a research tool for sustainable aquaculture project
    (Springer, 2021-09-18) Yang, Miying; Luis, Martino; Hermawan, Dodi; Herlina, Lely; Nayak, Rakesh; Jensen, Jens; Choudhary, Sonal; Ball, Peter; Evans, Steve
    Many research projects require strong interactions between academics and practitioners. Academics often face the challenges of collecting sufficient, high-quality research data, while achieving the project aim and producing practical impact to industrial partners. This paper presents the design of a research tool for data collection that increases industrial engagement in a sustainable aquaculture project. The project aim was to explore digital solutions for improving sustainability of shrimp aquaculture industry in Indonesia. To better facilitate the data collection and industrial engagement, we adapt the life cycle thinking and multi-stakeholder concepts from an existing tool, known as Sustainable Value Analysis Tool, redesign the rationale, and develop a new research tool to meet the specific purposes of this project. The research tool is composed of three parts: mapping and clustering challenges, assessing challenges, and co-designing digital solutions. The research tool was used in a workshop with 12 industrial partners from various organizations across the aquaculture supply chains in Indonesia in August 2019. The findings show that the empirical data collected through this tool is richer and more comprehensive compared to semi-structured interviews, and that the use of the tool greatly improved the industrial engagement. The feedback from the industrial partners shows that the tool has effectively helped them engage in the research process and improved the communication between themselves. This paper therefore suggests that designing and using such research tools is an effective way for data collection and industrial engagement.
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    Minimising the machining energy consumption of a machine tool by sequencing the features of a part
    (Elsevier, 2017-01-11) Hu, Luoke; Peng, Chen; Evans, Steve; Peng, Tao; Liu, Ying; Tang, Renzhong; Tiwari, Ashutosh
    Increasing energy price and emission reduction requirements are new challenges faced by modern manufacturers. A considerable amount of their energy consumption is attributed to the machining energy consumption of machine tools (MTE), including cutting and non-cutting energy consumption (CE and NCE). The value of MTE is affected by the processing sequence of the features within a specific part because both the cutting and non-cutting plans vary based on different feature sequences. This article aims to understand and characterise the MTE while machining a part. A CE model is developed to bridge the knowledge gap, and two sub-models for specific energy consumption and actual cutting volume are developed. Then, a single objective optimisation problem, minimising the MTE, is introduced. Two optimisation approaches, Depth-First Search (DFS) and Genetic Algorithm (GA), are employed to generate the optimal processing sequence. A case study is conducted, where five parts with 11–15 features are processed on a machining centre. By comparing the experiment results of the two algorithms, GA is recommended for the MTE model. The accuracy of our model achieved 96.25%. 14.13% and 14.00% MTE can be saved using DFS and GA, respectively. Moreover, the case study demonstrated a 20.69% machining time reduction.
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    Product-service systems business models for circular supply chains
    (Taylor and Francis, 2018-05-21) Yang, Miying; Smart, Palie; Kumar, Mukesh; Jolly, Mark R.; Evans, Steve
    Shifting supply chain architectures from ‘linear’ to ‘circular’ structures is imperative as businesses strive towards a circular economy ideal. Such a transformation requires innovation in the business models with impacts on value propositions, operations and revenue streams. This paper investigates the phenomenon of ‘circularity’ in supply chain operations, and proposes that product-service systems (PSS) business models can enhance restorative and regenerative effects of inner circles, circling long and cascading use circles. It adopts an exploratory case study method of a large Chinese manufacturing firm operating a traditional product-based business model and three variants of PSS (i.e. product-, use- and result-oriented PSSs) within its sub-architectures. The supply chain operations of the four distinct business models are analysed and their associated circularities are discussed. The findings show that business model akin to result-oriented PSS, have tighter and more efficient circularity of supply chain operations. This research contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between supply chain circularity and business model innovation in the context of a circular economy ideal.
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    Rapid decarbonization requires industrial efficiency
    (Springer, 2025-01-31) Yang, Miying; Evans, Steve
    The potential of effciency to support decarbonization is underestimated and overlooked relative to more expensive and intensive actions. Implementing resource and energy effciency strategies in industry could deliver rapid and cost-effective decarbonization.
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    Research challenges for eco-efficient and circular industrial systems
    (Springer , 2024-09-07) Despeisse, Mélanie; Acerbi, Federica; Arioli, Veronica; Childe, Stephen; Colombo, Beatrice; Evans, Steve; González Chávez, Clarissa A.; Jones, Saul; Nujen, Bella B.; Pezzotta, Giuditta; Powell, Daryl; Toller Melén, Carl; Vasconcelos, Margarida; Yang, Miying; Wuest, Thorsten; Romero, David
    The field of industrial sustainability is rapidly expanding with new concepts and frameworks emerging almost daily. At the same time, mature ones are being used in new applications and combined with new technologies and methodologies. While these developments are promising, the ambitions, scale, and speed of the change required to meet sustainability goals urgently need to increase. To accelerate industrial sustainability research and its impact, experts were invited to discuss research challenges in a webinar series focused on ten priority areas for eco-efficient and circular industrial systems. This paper presents the research challenges discussed to share sustainability practices, stimulate collaborations, and inspire change for more impactful applied research and knowledge transfer to industry.
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    Too fast to bother? Integrity, instrumentality, and externality factors for early sustainable design implementation in the fast-moving-consumer-goods sector
    (Inderscience, 2020-12-15) Park, Curie; Charnley, Fiona; Longhurst, Philip J.; Bolton, Simon; Evans, Steve
    This paper investigates what enables sustainable design implementation from the front-end of new product development (NPD) processes within the fast-moving-consumer-goods (FMCG) industry. Five FMCG cases at varying sustainability maturity levels (SMLs) were selected for survey-based interviews. The identified 11 factors and 32 sub-factors are presented under the three groups of integrity, instrumentality and externality. Balanced focus on Growth and Consumer Insight and Maturity of infrastructure and consumer & market are FMCG specific. The synthesis is presented in a framework explaining the precedence of the Integrity group factors before others. Quantitative analysis reveals that more positive, frequent evidence of factors and sub-factors is observed in higher sustainability maturity cases. The study confirms some of the existing but controversial factors across design and management fields, and uncovers two new FMCG specific factors. The study assists academics and industry practitioners in understanding what to consider when adopting sustainable design in the fast-paced business environment.
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    Unpacking additive manufacturing challenges and opportunities in moving towards sustainability: an exploratory study
    (MDPI, 2023-02-20) Liu, Wen; Liu, Xielin; Liu, Ying; Wang, Jie; Evans, Steve; Yang, Miying
    The global market for Additive Manufacturing (AM) is expected to grow, which may increase the prominence of sustainability aspects in the manufacturing process. A growing number of AM academics and practitioners have started to pay attention to the environmental and societal impacts of AM instead of only focusing on its economic aspect. Yet, AM is still not widely adopted, and the research on AM sustainability is still at the nascent stage. This paper aims to better understand AM’s sustainable adoption and seeks to address three questions: what the sustainability implications of AM are; what challenges may prevent the broad adoption of AM; and what opportunities can enable AM sustainability. The research adopts a multiple case study method to investigate six AM companies that play different roles in the AM ecosystem, including AM design, AM machine, AM material, AM service, AM education, and AM consulting. The results from these studies reveal that AM has the potential to reduce environmental and social impacts; however, it might also cause negative consequences and lead to some rebound effects. We identified 43 categories (synthesized from 199 examples) of key challenges for AM adoption and proposed 55 key solutions in moving AM towards sustainability. It is evident that AM acts as a promising digital technology for manufacturing and has the potential to pave the way for a new era of sustainable manufacturing.
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    Zero carbon manufacturing through process flow modelling
    (2012-10-16) Despeisse, Melanie; Ball, Peter; Evans, Steve; Levers, Andy
    The pressure on natural resources and emerging environmental legislation are leading manufacturers to adopt solutions to reduce their environmental impact, thereby becoming more sustainable, while enhancing competitiveness. Current approaches in this area are fragmented and clustered around technologies rather than around processes that link the technologies together. There is a need to better understand material, energy and waste (MEW) flows, as well as the interaction between processes in a manufacturing facility from a systemic viewpoint. This paper presents an approach using process flow modelling in order to help manufacturers to identify potential improvements to progress towards competitive sustainable manufacturing. Ultimately they could reach zero carbon manufacturing (ZCM) by having zero material resource degradation, zero net energy demand and zero waste across the system.