An environmental assessment model applied to printed circuit board manufacturing

Environmental consciousness in manufacturing is becoming increasingly important, due to market pressure and government regulations. As a result, there is an immediate need to develop a model which can effectively assess the impacts of pollution in manufacturing. In this paper, an environmental assessment model is developed based on the combining of the “interval method” with the network analytic method and fuzzy set theory. By applying fuzzy set theory and using on-site-measured pollution data, this model allows uncertain, interactive and dynamic information to be incorporated into the environmental impact assessment. The applicability of this model is demonstrated by a printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing case. It is concluded that this model is a simple, pragmatic and effective tool for analysing the relative impacts of waste emissions and evaluating the environmental performance of manufacturing processes.