WEIGHTING THE SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING PRACTICES: A FUZZY ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS

Abstract

Pressure from customers and stakeholders has forced manufacturing firms to adopt sustainable manufacturing practices into their operations and supply chain management strategies. The three core principles should be considered during their implementation, that consists of economic, environmental, and social. The selection and prioritization of these three core principles become a complex decision-making process. The multi-criteria decision-making techniques can serve as a medium to ease the process of selection and prioritization in a complex system. Thus, this study focuses on prioritizing the sustainable manufacturing practices by determining the weights through Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process in the Malaysian manufacturing sector. The practices were identified through a literature review, questionnaire survey, and consensus obtained from a panel of experts. The findings indicate that environmental was identified as the most important criterion, followed by economic and social. The environmental aspect was emphasized by two: the Environmental Conservation Program and Environmental Recycling and Prevention Program. This finding reveals that the Malaysian manufacturing sector is focusing on ‘green factories’ since this sector consumes a high percentage of final energy use. In addition, this finding will be beneficial to manufacturing practitioners who intend to transform from conventional to sustainable one. The manufacturing practitioner will be facilitated to emphasize the important practice and develop a strategy plan to adopt sustainable manufacturing practices.