Sustainability Performance Assessment of Alternate Machining Technologies Available to Purchase

A method to assess and compare sustainability performance of alternative machining technologies is presented in this paper. The alternative machining technologies use different techniques for cooling of the tool and work-piece interface. The paper considers three technologies, conventional flood machining (CFM) that uses cooling lubricant fluids (CLFs), cryogenic machining (CryoM) and near dry machining (NDM). An overall sustainability score (OSS) has been proposed that represents sustainability, taking into account three important factors, namely (i) machining cost (ii) quality and (iii) environmental impacts. OSS is used to compare alternative machining technologies with an objective to find the most sustainable machining process. A turning operation case study is conducted to showcase the effectiveness of the proposed method.