Environmentally sustainable supply chains in the aerospace manufacturing sector

Abstract

The aerospace manufacturing sector has faced many challenges in the recent years due to global disruptive phenomena, in particular the COVID-19 pandemic. The industry has been forced to adjust its supply chains due to the shortage of components, such as jet-engines. These disruptions have also led to investments being made into new equipment and improved processes. This disruption could also offer a possibility to create new, more environmentally sustainable solutions in the field. The subject of this bachelor’s thesis is to study environmental sustainability in the context of supply chains in the aerospace manufacturing sector and to find solutions to improve it. More specifically, the goal of the thesis is to study which of these solutions are the most important and to which extent the solutions are being utilised currently and how the situation could change in the future.

The thesis has been conducted in the form of a systematic literature review, where the articles referenced and the searches made are being documented in detail. The thesis is structured in the following way. First, the underlying theory regarding sustainability and the aerospace manufacturing sector is studied. After that, different solutions to make the sector’s supply chains more environmentally sustainable are being presented. The solutions are divided into three distinct categories: technological solutions, operational solutions, and combined solutions. Combined solutions were added as a category due to some of the solutions including significantly both technological and operational attributes. Finally, the thesis is being concluded and the most important findings are being presented. In addition, possible ideas for future research are being presented.

Additive manufacturing, as well as lean and green practices stand out as important solutions to improve environmental sustainability of the supply chains in the aerospace manufacturing sector. Also, Industry 4.0 combines multiple different solutions that have potential to become more utilised in the future.

The amount of literature available in the chosen field is relatively limited, which affects the reliability of the results of this thesis. However, since the thesis did not go into great de-tail into any of the topics discussed, it could at least offer a starting point and an overview of the field for further research in the topic.