A Methodology for Sustainability Assessment and Decision Support for Sustainable Handling Systems

Sustainable manufacturing is an important goal to reduce the carbon footprint and securing the economic success of companies. To reach sustainable manufacturing it is also necessary to use sustainable equipment. For this purpose, the sustainability indicators of the asset during its whole life cycle need to be considered for decision making during the design and selection of equipment. Missing analysis methods as well as missing awareness of the importance are obstacles in decision making. Therefore, a multi-criterial analysis method for handling systems for decision empowerment is presented in this paper. The presented methodology enables the engineer to analyze the suppliers for decision making in the purchasing process as well as the identification of weak points regarding sustainability in the handling systems. The methodology offers the possibility of analyzing a system of several parts as a whole, rather than just individual parts. The methodology is implemented in a usable software prototype which has a graphical interface for the data input and can be connected to conventional databases. The usability of the tool is shown with a handling system consisting of an industrial robot and a gripping system.