Theses and Dissertations

Vivian Hui

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Bullington, Stanley F.

Committee Member

Smith, Brian

Committee Member

Ma, Junfeng

Committee Member

Walden, Clayton T.

Date of Degree

12-13-2019

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Industrial and Systems Engineering

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

College

James Worth Bagley College of Engineering

Department

Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Abstract

One area that has received attention in the literature is sustainable production. This research has focused upon modifying production processes to improve sustainability. Semiconductor manufacturing has evolved into one of the most important industries in the world. However, as a new industry, semiconductor manufacturing has had far less attention in the sustainability literature as compared to more mature industries. Amongst the sustainability frameworks and methodologies that have been developed to measure the sustainability of an entity, waste is treated as an afterthought, not as the focus of the research. The literature rarely considers waste management as a component of sustainable manufacturing and those works that consider waste management as a component of sustainable production do not put forth a framework for others to follow in developing sustainable waste management. The semiconductor industry is important, but semiconductor waste management is very sparse in the literature. On those rare occasions when semiconductor waste is evaluated, the work is very specific to a single product or process. To the best of this author’s knowledge, reported research focused upon sustainable waste management in this industry is nonexistent. Similarly, the literature does not include systemic approaches to waste management for the semiconductor industry. This research is about sustainable management of semiconductor industrial waste. A sustainable industrial waste management framework is introduced in Chapter III: Sustainable Industrial Waste Management (SIWM). This framework has six modules. Chapter IV provides detailed descriptions of these six modules and their elements. Chapter V uses two case studies from the semiconductor industry to illustrate the analysis part of the framework. This kind of explicit demonstration of analysis is seldom provided in the sustainability research literature. The proposed SIWM framework has limitations and was targeted at the semiconductor industry. Relaxing these limitations and consideration of other industries offer extensions for further research. The SIWM framework is not proposed to replace current sustainability frameworks/methodologies. This framework is not about measuring the static sustainable performance of an entity; it is about encouraging and helping users to actively seek, prioritize, and select opportunities and options for a more sustainable management of waste.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/16440

Download

Share

COinS