Manufacturing Automation for Environmentally Sustainable Foundries

Abstract

Manufacturing automation can enable the foundry SMEs (Small-to-Medium manufacturing Enterprises) to be economically and environmentally sustainable. Foundry industry has significant challenges in the current regulatory and political environment with developing an economical and environmentally sustainable business model. Today, because of metal recycling, most foundries consider themselves as green. In reality, the foundry industry has yet to achieve the higher level of sustainability that the future will demand. Flexible manufacturing has already proven itself as a model for economic sustainability. While this strategy has been examined for general manufacturing, it has not been investigated in detail for the foundry industry. This paper proposes an approach on how flexible manufacturing automation can support the initiative for greener foundries.