Analysis of the potential of assessing sustainable production with a cost model

This paper investigates the usability of a cost model to assess sustainable production. The aim is to develop an established cost model to also take sustainability into consideration and hence evaluate sustainable production on the shop floor. To facilitate the analyse literature have been studied to find indicators for sustainable production. The indicators have then been mapped together with parameters in the cost model which made it possible to analyse what sustainable indicators that are represented in the model. The findings indicates that the cost model has to undertake a considerably transformation to capture all the aspects of sustainability. The cost model has either to transform into an economic model including product price or a parameter comprising the price change after sustainability improvements to capture economic sustainability. Several indicators from the literature are not directly connected to costs and benefits and hence not possible to connect to a financial model. One way to facilitate the assessment of sustainability is to involve a sustainability index. Connecting a sustainability index to the model would make it possible to view both the economic impact of the sustainability improvements and the actual sustainability impact.