A method for determining a functional unit to measure environmental performance in manufacturing systems

High product variety paired with high complexity is a common characteristic of manufacturing systems. Approaches in literature to define functional units disregard these characteristics of a production environment. Sound environmental performance measurement is therefore not possible. Based on case study research, this paper presents a novel method which enables decision makers in machine design and production planning and control (PPC) to define effect-oriented functional units that level the measured performance with regard to the dependencies between the performance dimensions and the variety of parts produced. The application of this method showed that the accuracy of the performance measurement can be increased significantly.