A critical analysis of sustainable micro-manufacturing from the perspective of the triple bottom line : a social network analysis

Abstract

Nowadays, substantial improvements in sustainable micro-manufacturing are explicitly addressed based on the triple bottom line (TBL) concept. However, strong criticisms are leveled for the applications of TBL as immense complexities of inner relationships of items and dimensional relationships within TBL, which they cause an inefficacy of accessing critical information in introducing the TBL concept to sustainable micro-manufacturing. In this study, social network analysis (SNA) is used for developing a TBL network of sustainable micro-manufacturing to find out precise meanings of individual items of various dimensions of TBL and the relationships between them. The main metrics of the dominant items of TBL such as in-degree, out-degree, betweenness centrality and closeness centrality are detailly discussed with 16 nodes for three dimensions in the TBL networks. The related findings are further analyzed to reveal the current situation, technical gaps and chances for the sustainable development of the micro-manufacturing sector. This study aims to reveal the relationship between the items of TBL of micro-manufacturing, and delivers the significant roles of the items of TBL according to the findings of metrics and visual analyses for sustainable micro-manufacturing, supporting micro-manufacturing sectors to implement effective sustainable strategies for production activities.