Projects

Environmental and Economic Performance

Research Theme: Enterprise Effectiveness

Project Objective Statement: To develop a tool to support operational and strategic decision making by providing simultaneous views of the facility/enterprise from manufacturing process, financial, and environmental perspectives.

Project summary:

From a sustainability perspective, we would define "performance" in the pulp and paper industry by the relative effectiveness of a mill or enterprise in transforming its capital resources-financial, technological, natural, and social-into value-added products and processes. The initial focus of the project team (Ecole Polytechnique & CPBIS/Georgia Tech) is on a manufacturing facility and its products, and the relevant measures of financial, technological and natural capital resource effectiveness. We will explore ways in which resource data (mass, energy, water, etc.) from steady-state and dynamic models of a production facility can be combined with financial data from an existing financial model used by the facility. The Ecole Polytechnique team will develop the steady-state and dynamic process models of the facility as well as provide an initial study on the existing financial model used by the firm. The CPBIS/Georgia Tech team will develop a so-called "enhanced" activity-based cost (ABC) model that integrates financial data with data on other resources (such as mass and energy) used by the manufacturing site. Future studies will address the product life-cycle perspective on effectiveness (with respect to environmental and financial performance) and the relationship between performance measures of a facility and the enterprise. The team's goal is to develop a tool to support both operational and strategic decision making by providing simultaneous views of the facility/enterprise from manufacturing process, financial, and environmental perspectives.

Contact:

Dr. Carol Carmichael, School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Tel: 404 894-5676

carol.carmichael@marc.gatech.edu

Planned Duration: 2 years; started in Fall 2001