The lean-green BOPSE indicator to assess efficiency and sustainability

Abstract

Over the years, companies have been progressing their management strategies and transforming their production systems to cope with the pressing environmental challenges and remain competitive, prosper and meet themarket demands. It is no longer enough to only satisfy the demand. The companies face a new transformation on the way of "doing things", being it the way performance and efficiency is improved, or its relationship with all the stakeholders. Lean manufacturing and eco-efficiency propose a setting for progressively reducingwastes and environmental impacts. Although Lean Production was not developed to directly tackle sustainability issues, its principles and practices convey benefits that could be put, unquestionably, under the umbrella of Green and resulting in synergies known as the Lean-Green link. This chapter aims to present the Business Overall Performance and Sustainability Effectiveness (BOPSE) indicator, which is intended to measure the companies' Lean-Green compliance. The BOPSE indicator is an integrated metric on companies' operational performance and sustainability conformity. This indicator exploits the Lean-Green production synergies and is operationalized through an indicator that aggregates and combines Lean production and Green production features. This indicator weaves a number of sustainability issues, spread over its three dimensions, with those encompassed by the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) indicator. Therefore, the BOPSE indicator intends to assess the effectiveness of the businesses grounded on operational performance and sustainability compliance, aiming at identifying both specific limitations and broader opportunities for the global improvement of the companies. Hence, the BOPSE indicator drives companies in their way to meet some of 17 sustainable development goals, namely the 8th-"Decent work and economic growth", and the 12th-"Responsible consumption and production" sustainable development goals.