Araujo and Oliveira [ARAU12] compared the sustainability of hard turning and grinding based on 29 sustainability indicators in a case study. They chose five social indicators for the comparison:
• labor relations: hourly wages,
• health and safety: number of occupational accidents, noise level, operator risk level,
• training and education: average number of hours of training per operator.
From their data, Araujo and Oliveira [ARAU12] found that the grinder earns higher salary and gets more hours of training and education, but health and safety indicators were worse (higher noise level, more accidents and higher operator risk per accident). In particular, grinding has a potential for more severe accidents if the rotating grinding tools get damaged [ARAU12].
The overall sustainability assessment of hard turning versus grinding can be done considering different scenarios, weighting the criteria differently. When the environmental and social dimensions grow in relevance, hard turning has an advantage because of lower specific energy per unit of material processed. The economic performance of grinding appears to be superior to turning. [ARAU12]
8.2 Leveraging Abrasive Machining
Leveraging is a term known in financial discussions and describes employing resources in such a way as to insure a larger return on the effort than might otherwise be realized [DORN11]. One example is using higher efforts to improve the machining tolerances of an aircraft airframe and gaining high savings in fuel during the life time of the produced airplane [DORN11]. Dornfeld [DORN11] points out that manufacturing-driven improvements are indeed responsible for substantial environmental impact reductions. Leveraging is critical for abrasive machining since it is often decisive for product function [AURI13].