Sustainable Production Research- a proposal of measuring research in sustainable production and monitoring of sustainability awareness

The research aims at investigating the possibilities to design measures suitable for evaluating research related to product development, production systems, and manufacturing processes. These measures should aim at both tracking and improving sustainability impact of research projects as well as in industry including the long term effects. The research questions are: How can measures for sustainable production be designed to: • measure the impact of a research project within the applied area e.g. the industry? • estimate increased sustainability awareness? • inspire novel ideas and development promoting sustainable production? Specifically we have: A) Conducted workshops with researchers and industry on sustainability measures and monitored sustainability awareness of the participants through concept maps. B) Developed a proposal for measures based on literature reviews, results from workshops and interviews with researchers regarding how sustainability measures can be incorporated and utilized in research. C) Developed a generic method for evaluating sustainability measures related to production research over time. D) 15 sustainability measures have been defined and fine tuned in two rounds by 40 senior researchers, where after monitoring and updates of the measures are performed continuously. Concept map showed that participants, at the start of the research effort in 2010, had an uneven view on sustainability with emphasis on technology. Second round of concept maps are carried out during June-September 2011 and results will be include