The Role of Manufacturing Techniques in Enterprises Producing Heating Devices in the Context of Sustainable Development

Received: 16 November 2012 Abstract Accepted: 12 February 2013 Manufacturing techniques are concerned with quality, cost, productivity and sustainability. With today‘s environmental awareness and the pressure of the sustainability requirements, existing manufacturing techniques of heating devices are evolving into the redesign manufacturing unit processes to increase overall sustainability. Also, these techniques need a measurement method to assess processes-related sustainability performance indicators. The purpose of this paper is to stress the role of manufacturing techniques: welding, cleaning and painting in the manufacture of heating appliances (solid fuel fired boilers used renewable energy sources) in terms of incorporating into the field the concept of sustainable development. It then focuses on the environmental, technical, economical and social impact of sustainable technologies and argues for the need to ensure that the concept is being applied to the manufacture of heating devices. In this paper, author tries to propose a unified, standard scientific factory-level methodology to evaluate the influence of manufacturing techniques on the sustainability of enterprises producing heating devices. The proposed methodology in the terms of the case study is a comprehensive answer to the question of to what extent the improvements in those techniques influence the sustainable development of the enterprises. An industrial case study demonstrates that the proposed improvements can effectively influence the sustainability of enterprise. The results of this assessment can be applied to broad industry sectors, and can lead to the accepted measures and practices.