In the last century, there was a general perception that scheduling theory was highly irrelevant to scheduling practice. Many recent studies, however, have suggested that the applicability of scheduling approaches is highly intertwined with the manufacturing environment in which the scheduling task is carried out. In this paper we used the constructs of Contingency Theory to suggest specific fits between scheduling approaches and manufacturing environments, after suggesting that the theory-practice gap in production scheduling research has been caused by three issues: (a) simplification of scheduling problems, (b) simplification of the practical scheduling task as a decision process, and (c) lack of relevance of the traditional scheduling approach to all manufacturing environments. Furthermore, we suggest that the dynamism of the state of the system and the complexity of the scheduling problem are the two constituting vectors that define the complexity of the scheduling task. We use both vectors to identify different types of manufacturing environments and propose specific fits with scheduling approaches. Finally, we hypothesize that the fit between scheduling approaches and manufacturing environments is only relevant in environments with high resource utilization where the scheduling task could have a bigger impact on a firm's performance, and present three case studies to better exemplify the relevance of the conceptual framework.

Since the concept of cleaner production (CP) considers not only the environment but also the economic and social dimension, additional scholarly attention is focused on studying the relationship of CP to sustainability. This research aims to present the main elements that contribute to successful CP implementation and sustainability in organisations. Eleven companies, mostly SMEs that adopted CP practices after a training course, were selected from different industrial sectors. The main results showed that the critical success factors most often cited for achieving successful implementation are commitment from top management and government support. Although some companies continue to implement sustainable practices, the majority apply CP only to comply with environmental laws, which results in a limited contribution to sustainability. Additionally, the analysed companies do not have standardised metrics to evaluate their sustainable performance, but CP serves as a guide to support their decisions. More effort is needed to make companies aware of the benefits of CP in other areas of organisations, and to integrate the three domains of sustainability when implementing CP practices.

Purpose - This paper proposes a maturity model to indicate the operational excellence (OE) implementation status of businesses in emerging countries, considering its importance in Industry 4.0.Design/methodology/approach- The study involves four steps. First, undertake a study of the literature to identify the variables to consider in the maturity model; second, identify how to organize the variables found in the first step; third, structure a questionnaire to define the maturity model; and lastly, validate the variables found in the literature and the maturity levels.Findings- A total of 23 variables were validated through interviews with general managers, operation managers and experts within organizations. Interviews were carried out in 49 companies from different sectors. Five maturity levels were defined in this study: basic level, beginner level, training level, innovative level and champion level.Originality/value - Many businesses are implementing OE as a practice to remain competitive in their industries, targeting economic, environmental and social sustainability. However, OE implementation in companies from developing or emerging countries is far below the average level of that in developed companies due to cultural, political or economic constraints. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no model that indicates the status of OE implementation in companies from emerging countries or the different levels to implement OE. This study fills the mentioned gap.

Purpose This research has the following specific objectives: provide an overview of the literature addressing operational excellence (OE) and OE in emerging countries; propose an integrative framework of OE attributes; and propose future research directions for the OE literature. Design/methodology/approach To remain competitive in industry, many organizations are implementing OE initiatives. However, achieving OE in emerging markets has been a pressing challenge due to the scarce knowledge on how it works. Through a systematic review of the literature, this study aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the concept of OE in emerging countries through the triple bottom line. Findings This study has found nine attributes of OE based on the three pillars of sustainability or triple bottom line (economic, environmental and social). Four of them were the most cited and served to build the proposed framework. The analysis concludes that most of the studies related to OE in emerging countries have been carried out in Asia. Finally, based on the results obtained from the literature review, six points of future research are proposed based on three research directions: OE in emerging countries, active participation by employees and culture generation and finally, research methods. Originality/value The gap that is filled in this study is that some authors have studied the application of OE in emerging countries, specifically on the Asian continent. In those cases, the literature is either oriented to describing OE from different perspectives or to its application in different companies, some of which are emerging countries. However, to the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no study that describes the specific and complete aspects that make up a model of OE and which can show how this model can be applied in emerging countries.

Purpose Green Lean tools are aligned with the Circular Economy strategy as they aim at reducing waste, however, they miss the creation of value through waste. Therefore, this paper investigates whether the current implementation of the Green Lean strategy promotes the introduction of the Circular philosophy to achieve sustainable management production processes. It analyses how the resources were managed by implementing the different strategies and tools presented in Green Lean case studies under the lens of Circular Economy and highlights future research paths on the Circular Lean integration. Design/methodology/approach An analysis of the implementation of Green Lean case studies, selected through a Systematic Literature Review, from the manufacturing sector is conducted. Findings The majority of Green Lean implementations were aimed at minimizing waste, which is aligned with the narrowing strategy of Circular Economy and only a few cases studies aimed at closing the production cycles. Even though the main results indicate that being eco-efficient is a good starting point to move towards sustainability, from a Circular Economy point of view, this approach could remain limited. Therefore, the current contribution of Green Lean to the implementation of circular practices is limited. It can be concluded that introducing the circular philosophy in the Green Lean methodology can be achieved through redirecting Green Lean from waste reduction towards a value creation focus. Originality/value The originality of this paper is that it provides a critical review of the literature on the topic of Green Lean integration and Circular Economy.

Purpose Urban logistics presents a series of challenges, as the interests of the different stakeholders are not always aligned. The aim of this research is to explore the potential of applying Lean principles to reduce waste in urban logistics. Design/methodology/approach As a structure for "going to gemba," the authors implemented the shadowing technique to better understand the perspective of companies distributing products in the city of Montevideo, Uruguay. Then, meetings were conducted to validate the observations by the people shadowed. Findings The results show that most of shipper's time is dedicated to waiting (59%), which is followed by driving (22%), and only a small section of time was dedicated to unloading and verification activities (19%). Although collaborative solutions are needed along with the different stakeholders, this research highlights how deploying Lean thinking can improve significantly urban logistics achieving up to 25% improvement in the number of stores served per shift. Practical implications From an academic point of view, this study emphasizes the importance of continue applying and evaluating the Lean practices into transportation contexts. From a company's perspective, the authors have presented a list of propositions that can be implemented for carriers in order to reduce waste and/or improve the efficiency of the urban transportation process. Originality/value Based on the literature review carried out, the subject study of Lean and its application to urban logistics remains mostly unexplored in the scientific literature.

The concept of Sustainable Production is evolving with changes triggered by the emergence of new economic and industrial models such as Circular Economy and Industry 4.0. However, most studies that currently link these concepts are based on the principles of Sustainable Production defined 20 years ago. Therefore, the primary aim of this study is to redefine the principles that should govern Sustainable Production operations in the tran-sition towards a Circular Economy and smart industry models. To this end, an initial proposal of 11 principles was shared with 11 world-class experts (academics and practitioners) and a consensus proposal was sought through a Delphi Panel. Ten principles emerged from this study, which were evaluated by experts according to criteria of significance, parsimony, semantic consistency and empirical adequacy. Additionally, to study the rela-tionships between the ten principles, the Interpretative Structural Model (ISM) technique was applied. The ISM technique identified which principles are independent of or dependent on each other and established relation-ships between the principles. The findings suggest that Principle 5 ("Prioritize employees' well-being"), Principle 6 ("Enhance management commitment to sustainability"), Principle 9 ("Measure and optimize sustainable pro-cesses") and Principle 10 ("Boost the use of sustainable technologies") help to establish an ideal context to enhance the development of the rest of the principles that characterize Sustainable Production. The presentation of the ten principles opens new possibilities for researchers while helping managers to better understand sustainability in terms of production and, therefore contribute to achieving SDG 12.

Lean and green are major, compatible management initiatives because of their joint focus on waste reduction, efficient use of resources and emphasis on satisfying customer needs at the lowest possible cost (economic and environmental). From this angle, this paper presents a bibliometric analysis of the integration of lean and green management. To that end, this paper analyses 685 research papers retrieved from the Scopus database using the following parameters: year of publication, discipline, source, institution, country and citations. This final dataset was composed of articles from scientific journals published between 1992-2018. Furthermore, VOSviewer software was used to map the bibliographic material using the coupling of countries and the co-occurrence of keywords. The analysis indicates that research on lean and green topics has increased in recent years, and that moreover the topic is structured into three clusters: 1) manufacturing; 2) energy, emissions and costs; 3) Lean Six Sigma. These highlights can facilitate the development of future research on this topic.

Water has become a critical resource due to increased manufacturing activities. However, there is a lack of detailed information on water management and consumption by industries. In the recent bibliography, lean-green was established as a good approach for achieving sustainability in manufacturing industries, but few studies have aimed to achieve both operational and environmental improvements in water consumption. In this paper, we present a multi-case study in the agri-food industry in which water consumption in company activities is monitored, allowing them to improve their industrial processes based on lean-green practices, leading to a zero-waste strategy for this critical resource. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of having detailed knowledge regarding water consumption in order to discover, in a lean-green context, new improvement opportunities which could remain hidden by the current way of analysing consumption.

Growing concerns about the environmental impact caused by industrial operations is spurring companies to seek more sustainable modes of production. In this context, adopting sustainable manufacturing (SM) practices still represents a challenge, especially for small and medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). In order to address this issue, this study identified a set of barriers to SM implementation. The main findings reveal that there is limited research on SM from Latin American (LATAM) countries, and the majority of published articles discuss the implementation of lean tools and cleaner production in industry. Additionally, results showed that the biggest challenges that Uruguayan companies have to face are associated with economic and financial barriers. A new categorization of barriers: human perceptions, resource constraints and weak legislation was presented. Finally, the study examines the adoption of SM practices in the country, with cleaner production and product recovery being the most implemented practices. This study concludes that there is an urgent need for government institutions, academia, and organizations to align their objectives and work together in order to support SMEs in their transition towards sustainability.

This book aims to introduce the Circular Economy to companies, in order to understand its origin, principles and benefits. The book presents a methodology to approach the Circular Economy in a systematic way. The guide is structured in four chapters that show the steps to help organizations on their way to the Circular Economy. The chapters are: 01. Transition to the Circular Economy, 02. Fields of Action in the Circular Economy, 03. Implementation methodology, 04. Tools for developing the Circular Economy. The methodology follows the improvement cycle, based on 1. Diagnosis, 2. Opportunity analysis, 3. Implementation plan, 4. Evaluation and feedback. The last chapter also presents a set of tools to help companies in their way to the Circular Economy

Vivimos en un maravilloso planeta, en el que hemos conseguido la tecnología necesaria para alcanzar altos niveles de bienestar y alargar la esperanza de vida humana. Este avance tecnológico ha cambiado radicalmente nuestra forma de vivir y relacionarnos con el planeta. En concreto, el consumo de energía a partir de combustibles fósiles ha ocasionado una serie de cambios ambientales con consecuencias potenciales como inundaciones, tormentas, sequías, aumento del nivel del mar y extinción masiva de especies. Pero éste no es el único aspecto en el nuestra actividad industrial y social está influyendo. Ya conocemos muchos datos que nos alertan de las consecuencias de nuestro desarrollo.

Most companies operate on a linear economy that consists of ¿take, make, use and waste.¿ However, the growing impact of industries¿ emissions on the environment has aroused global concerns about their activities. As a result, companies are increasingly aware of the importance of implementing a circular economy (CE) with environmental, social and economic beneficial results. In this transition to a circular system, companies will need guidance, especially in the case of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the predominant type of company in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) area. Taking this into account, the objective of this chapter is to provide SMEs with a methodology to understand the value of CE for their corporate strategy, diagnose their business and design an action plan to facilitate the transition to the CE, allowing them to create value and gain a competitive advantage in the market. The CE could be addressed through six fields of action: take, make, distribute, use and recover goods and materials (Park et al. in J Clean Prod 18:1492¿1499, 2010; Stahel in Nature 24:6¿9, 2016), and a transversal field of action called industrial symbiosis. These six fields of action are the methodology¿s backbone. The CE methodology for an SME consists of the following steps: Diagnose the company¿s situation, through reflection on the current value proposal, the stakeholders and a preliminary diagnosis regarding its level of CE application through a proposed diagnosis tool. Analyze barriers and opportunities derived from the application of the CE. Propose a CE implementation plan. This chapter will explain, the process followed, and the various results obtained in the rubber-metal company. The proposed methodology makes an important contribution to SMEs¿ professionals regarding the step-by-step implementation of the CE using a real case that shows how to identify, plan and capitalize on the opportunities of the circular economy. The case study reveals how SMEs can start implementing the paradigm shift through environmental strategies that do not usually require high amounts of financial resources or technology. Moreover, the case study also highlights the relevance of the CE for creating value and a competitive strategy in the market.

Nowadays, urban freight transport networks must be environmentally sustainable. As a consequence, collaboration strategies have been implemented as one alternative to enhance the efficiency of the supply chain and to reduce its environmental burden. However, there is a lack of knowledge about how to correctly quantify the environmental impact of collaborative urban freight transport networks. To fill this gap, we present an optimization approach for evaluating the environmental performance of collaborative systems by applying the Overall Greenness Performance (OGP) tool. We illustrate our approach using real data from the city of Bogotá, Colombia. Our results provide insights for shifting towards sustainable freight transportation networks. For example, we quantify savings up to 11% of CO2 emissions after applying collaboration in urban transportation contexts.

The increase in environmental and social awareness has triggered numerous green initiatives at companies. Traditionally, companies¿ training related to environmental management focuses on technical aspects and theoretical concepts. In addition to these theoretical contents, it is necessary to carry out practical activities to impart the desired behaviors and skills. Serious games have been found to improve employees understanding of practical environmental sustainability challenges, by offering opportunities to obtain first-hand experiences that may otherwise be too costly and difficult to reproduce in reality. This work presents Pizz@green, a serious game which simulates the productive and environmental efficiencies generated by the improvements of processes in a pizza shop. The purpose of the game is the practical learning of the environmental impact caused by the production processes of a company.

The main objective of this paper is to present the logical framework approach (LFA) as a tool that prepares companies and workers to implement continuous improvement programs. This methodology encourages worker participation in different steps in order to reach consensus in the organization. In addition, the application of LFA improves the capabilities of workers in areas such as participatory analysis, problem analysis and objectives analysis. These capabilities are necessary in any continuous improvement program. The paper also presents the results of applying LFA in two different companies.

Manufacturers have the challenge to increase productivity given complex manufacturing environments. A source that provides substantial levels of productivity is the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) metric, which is an indicator to improve not only equipment utilization; but also the overall manufacturing operations, because of the valuable information that comes from the availability, performance and quality rates. Although information technologies have been introduced, companies use manually recorder data and have complicated measurement procedures. As a consequence, inaccurate information is generated and opportunities to improve productivity are missed. This paper presents a continuous improvement framework based on Lean manufacturing philosophy, operated by a system of wireless devices to support the real time equipment performance metrics. In order to validate the framework, results of a case study are exposed.

Manufacturers continue facing the never ending challenge of finding the best way to increase productivity levels in order to remain competitive. Significant level of productivity are given by the efficient utilization of production equipment, thus manufacturing companies use the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) rate as an indicator to control equipment utilization related to the maintenance activity; however they do not take into account other valuable OEE-information to improve their entire manufacturing operations. This paper presents a continuous improvement model Plug&Lean-CiMo, whose aims are the accurate calculation of the OEE indicators, the appropriate classification of losses, and the systematic integration of lean manufacturing philosophy tools in an improvement methodology. The model has the advantage of using a portable wireless system to support the automated collection, of data to make the continuous improvement process easier. A case study is presented to illustrate the validation of the model.