Understanding green production: A pilot study to explore the production centred factors impacting the development of green producers

随着对绿色产品的需求持续上升，现在正在出现大量机会，以创造和发展新的企业。这一新的生产商浪潮对英国公司来说既是一个重要的环境机遇，也是一个重要的经济机遇。然而，可能是我们现有的生产运营知识不足以支持绿色生产商的快速增长，而英国将迟迟无法从这些新的商机中获益。与许多传统制造商不同的是，在这里，原材料来源、接近市场、生产控制和雇佣道德等因素是品牌识别和产品差异化的关键。此外，这种价值观的变化也对生产运营设计和管理的传统思维提出了挑战。例如，通过将生产外包给中国来寻求降低成本可能是一种诅咒。这让我们不禁要问‘哪些以生产为中心的问题会影响英国绿色制造商的增长？’这在主流运筹学研究界是一个相对未被探索的话题，由于我们不确定可能会遇到什么，我们提出这项试点研究，以更好地了解这些问题，并为未来的工作奠定基础。

As demand continues to rise for green products substantial opportunities are now emerging for the creation and development of new businesses. This new wave of producers represents both an important environmental and economic opportunity for UK Plc. However, it may be that our existing knowledge of production operations is inadequate to support the rapid growth of green producers, and that the UK will be slow to reap the benefits of these new business opportunities. In contrast to many traditional manufacturers, here, factors such as the sources of materials, proximity to markets, control over production, and ethics of employment, are key to brand identity and product differentiation. Moreover, this change in values also challenges conventional thinking on production operations design and management. For example it may be an anathema to seek cost reductions by outsourcing production to China. This has led us to question 'what are the production centred issues that can impact the growth of UK based green manufacturers?' This is a relatively unexplored topic within the mainstream operations research community and, as we are unsure of what we may encounter, we propose this pilot study to better understand these issues and form a foundation for future work.