724 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 67, NO.
3, AUGUST 2020
Enhancing Ecoinnovation Performance: Evidence
From a Water Footprint Assessment in the
Manufacturing Industry
Giulia Romeni , Francesco Paolo Appio , Antonella Martini , Benjamin Mercat, Alan Jean-Marie,
and Christian Joubert
Abstract—The unprecedented global environmental crisis we are
facing nowadays is pushing the economic actors to rethink their
approach to sustainable development. As a consequence, firms are
increasingly adopting and implementing ecoinnovations in their
processes in order to improve the management of scarce natural
resources. This paper describes a method to assess the water foot-
print (WF) in the manufacturing industry. Data are collected from
two manufacturing plants of Volvo (Umea and Tuve) in Sweden
and constitute the baseline scenario against which seven new sce-
narios are tested. Such new scenarios describe the implementation
of seven different technologies into the water management system
of the organization. A combination of key performance indicators
is instrumental to generate the WF of each scenario. Through this
method, we are able to disentangle which technological change can
pave the way toward a substantial improvement of the organiza-
tional WF.
Index Terms—Ecoinnovation, key performance indicators
manufacturing industry, simulation, water footprint (WF).
I. INTRODUCTION
HE unprecedented global environmental crisis we are fac-
T ing nowadays is pushing countries to carefully rethink their
approach to sustainable development [6]. Environmental degra-
dation, pollution, and chronic reduction of natural resources are
progressing at an unimaginable speed and are symptomatic of
the insufficient attention all economic and policy-making play-
ers paid. Among them, firms are responsible for the current
environmental state [15], and this concern is transversal to all
industrial sectors [12]. As a consequence, ecoinnovation (e.g.,
[6], [11], [15], and [45]) is increasingly becoming an inevitable
option in order for firms to stay competitive and cope with envi-
ronmental pressure. According to the European Eco-Innovation
Manuscript received June 22, 2018; revised December 24, 2018; accepted
January 8, 2019. Date of publication February 14, 2019; date of current version
July 16, 2020. Review of this manuscript was arranged by Department Editor
T. Hong. (Corresponding author: Francesco Paolo Appio.)
G. Romeni is with Sopra Steria Consulting, 92400 Courbevoie, France
(e-mail:,giulia.romeni@soprasteria.com).
F. P. Appio is with Léonard de Vinci Pôle Universitaire, 92916 Paris La
Défense, France (e-mail:,francesco.appio@devinci.fr).
A. Martini is with the School of Engineering, University of Pisa, 56126 Pisa,
Italy (e-mail:,antonella.martini@unipi.it).
B. Mercat, A. Jean-Marie, and C. Joubert are with Altran Technologies,
78140 Vélizy-Villacoublay, France (e-mail:, benjamin.mercat@altran.com;
alan.jean-marie@altran.com; christian.joubert@altran.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TEM.2019.2893968
0018-9391 © 2019 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
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Observatory,1 ecoinnovation is the introduction of any new or
significantly improved product (good or service), process, orga-
nizational change, or marketing solution that reduces the use of
natural resources (including materials, energy, water, and land)
and decreases the release of harmful substances across the whole
life cycle. Our paper tackles this timely and urgent issue by fo-
cusing on those ecoinnovation firms that can adopt in order to
be more efficient when using a specific natural resource: water.
A recent statistical analysis from the European Commission
(2017)2 clearly shows that, at the European scale, both house-
holds and the manufacturing industry make an important use
of water, with self and other water supply as a major source
of water in manufacturing. Currently, industrial organizations
are facing two challenges. First and foremost, necessary for
the greatest part of the industrial activities, water remains a
scarce resource: over the course of the past decade, a cluster
of environment-related risks—notably extreme weather events
and failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation as
well as water crises—has emerged as a consistently central
feature of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Percep-
tion Survey (GRPS)3 risk landscape, strongly interconnected
with many other risks, such as conflict and migrations. This
year, the environmental concerns are more prominent than ever,
with all the associated risks in this category being above the
average in terms of impact and likelihood. Second, industrial
organizations are facing increasingly stringent regulations4 on
water use and consumption patterns, which in turn pose cru-
cial managerial decisions impacting performance, cost, security
of supply, and environmental labeling. Given these two major
issues—scarcity of water resources and the tightening of envi-
ronmental regulations—the quantity and quality of water used
and discharged become important parameters for industrial or-
ganizations to take into account. Thus, efficient reasoned, and
sustainable water management is of major economic [39], en-
vironmental [28], societal, and regulatory concern (European
Commission).
1 [Online]. Available: http://www.eco-innovation.eu/index.php
2 [Online]. Available: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.
php?title=Water_statistics
3 [Online]. Available: http://reports.weforum.org/global-risks-2017/executive
-summary/
4 [Online]. Available: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-framework/
info/intro_en.htm,
[Online]. Available: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/reuse.htm,
[Online]. Available: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-framework/
index_en.html
ROMENI et al.: ENHANCING ECOINNOVATION PERFORMANCE
The issue of water management in industry is however com-
plex and specific, both from a quantitative and qualitative stance.
Indeed, quantitatively, the aim would be optimizing the use of
water, especially when it is used at several levels in the industrial
process (e.g., [25] and [32]). In terms of quality, each industrial
activity has its own constraints as well as a great diversity of
industrial discharges (e.g., [8] and [44]). Quantitative and quali-
tative concerns determine what scholars and practitioners define
as Water Footprint (WF).
Existing approaches deal with the WF by focusing on dif-
ferent units of analysis such as national (e.g., [23] and [27]),
sector (e.g., [7] and [41]), and value chain (e.g., [2] and [15]);
the main limitation of such approaches is that they consider the
organization as a black box. To the best of our knowledge, few
studies address this limitation (e.g., [24]). On the contrary, our
approach opens the black box up trying to figure out how—and
to what extent—a method can be designed in order to support
decision makers in the WF assessment of their organizations.
Furthermore, a recent bibliometric analysis [47] mapped the re-
search on WF from 2006 to 2015; among the hot topics, authors
precisely highlighted the need to go in depth with the integration
of footprint indicators in order to grasp deeper connections and
interactions among them.
To fill these gaps, the aim of our paper is twofold: first, we
develop a method to assess the WF [20], [23], [35] in the context
of the manufacturing industry. Precisely, the proposed method
models the flows and uses of water within an industrial site
of a Swedish vehicle manufacturer alongside their associated
impacts (i.e., overall performance, cost, safety, sustainability,
etc.), in order to identify and quantify the points of improvement
and to propose solutions to optimize the water management on
the selected site. Second, a fundamental part of this method deals
with the integration of different key performance indicators (at
micro and macro levels) measuring a variety of aspects of water
management within the organizational setting. Accordingly, we
advance a method for the qualitative and quantitative assessment
of the WF in the manufacturing industry. Its major components
are as follows:
1) a framework through which it is possible to classify dif-
ferent processes into some blocks as general as possible
in order to be generalizable to different industrial sectors;
2) a comprehensive database of qualitative and quantitative
indicators around water;
3) a unique set of data collected from the industrial site under
study;
4) a simulation methodology with defined steps in order to
assess the current WF (the baseline) and contrast it against
seven WFs stemming from different scenarios.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. A lit-
erature review on the WF is carried out by showing the most
recent trends and which ones we target with our paper; a frame-
work abstracting a water management system inside a man-
ufacturing industry is outlined, identifying and characterizing
five main processes; the second section ends with a collection
of those key performance indicators that better measure the
performance of each identified process. The third section pro-
vides with an in-depth description of the research setting, data
collection, method, and simulation settings we deploy in or-
der to compare the baseline (case study) with seven simulated
scenarios depending on the implementation of seven different
technologies into the existing water management system; fi-
nally, the findings highlight what is the best scenario in terms
of accomplished better performance on the WF.
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725
II. LITERATURE
This section will introduce the reader with an overview of
the most important research streams on the WF, the one we
chose because of the specificities of our paper; the framework
we are going to use, well representing the boundaries between
the organization and the environment as well as an abstraction
of the processes of the water management system in use by the
organization.
A. Ecoinnovation and Research on the WF
Scholars, practitioners, and policymakers are increasingly
paying attention to the characteristics of ecoinnovations and
their ways to tackle the current global environmental crisis.
Pollution-intensive industries5 are among those economic ac-
tors, impacting the most and intensifying this crisis. Extant lit-
erature mainly focused on the drivers and barriers of ecoinno-
vation (e.g., [6] and [45]), the impact of specific technologies
(e.g., [1]), the general and strategic role of ecoinnovation in
contemporary organizational settings (e.g., [15]), and the type
of internal capabilities [34] firms need to put in place. When it
comes to the latter, Salim et al. [34] show that process innovation
is not the most investigated side of the story; also, in terms of
capabilities, it is key that firms start developing a set of dynamic
capabilities concerning knowledge management, environmental
leadership, green human resource management, and integration
management. In our paper, we will adopt a process innovation
perspective, emphasizing the need to develop a framework to
better deal with the use of a scant natural resource: water.
To better serve the aims of our paper, we will rely on a number
of indicators-based water management systems which are put
in place in order to efficiently face this problem. WF was first
proposed by Hoekstra and Hung in 2002 as a way to measure
human water consumption. It will take a few years in order to
see the WF included in the list of indicators supporting decision-
making for water resources management [13], [18].
WF analyses are quite versatile being them applicable for
a specific product or service, for a well-identified cluster of
customers (e.g., individual/region/basin/district/nation/globe),
or producer (public organization/private organization/industrial
sector, etc.) (e.g., [9], [14], and [18]).
Current research trends [47] extensively focus on WF ac-
counting methodologies and water energy nexus with particular
attention on bioenergy (biomass, bioelectricity, biodiesel, and
biofuel) and impacts of water use (e.g., [28]–[30], [37], and
[51]). In terms of methods used to assess the environmental im-
pact in the field of water resource sustainability, the life cycle
assessment (e.g., [3], [19], and [31]) has the lion share, followed
by the input–output models (e.g., [42], [43], and [52]). Accord-
ing to Zhang et al. [47], four major WF research streams still
deserves attention: first, deep investigations of the water–food–
energy nexus are needed by introducing indicators, which take
into account security and consumption on different temporal
and spatial scales [36]; second, a lack of research is highlighted
when it comes to exploring the driving mechanism of the WF
variation, an aspect that may be of great help to facilitate the
design of more effective water policies; herein, the role played
by climate change [5], [48] as well as human activities [38], [43]
deserve attention; third, of utmost importance is for researchers
5 [Online]. Available: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/
421701468772781985/Greening-industry-new-roles-for-communities-markets-
and-governments
726
Fig. 1. Framework.
focusing on the environmental impacts of water use; life cycle
assessment methods have been widely adopted [3], [10], [26],
but hybrid approaches are needed in order to increase the ac-
curacy of the estimations [4]; finally, though in the early stage,
researchers have begun integrating indicators to generate more
aggregate versions of the WF, but more needs to be done in order
to provide decision makers with a method that is as versatile,
accurate, and comprehensive as possible [47]. Our paper will fo-
cus on this last emerging research trend, by advancing a method
which integrates a series of micro and macro key performance
indicators with a focus on the internal organizational setting.
B. Framework
To build the framework, the very first step to manage is
deciding which main processes are going to characterize the
entire water management system, handling its complexity at
the organizational level. The EcoWater project6 —focusing on
the ecoefficiency indicators to assess technologies and their up-
take in water use sectors—was the main reference to identify the
main processes. Levidow et al. [21], [22], Ribarova et al. [33],
and Todorovic et al. [40] provide with the conceptual bases for
selecting the following processes:
1) Water abstraction, concerning all the interface processes
about the abstraction of water from the environment
necessary to transport water within the organization;
2) Water treatment, entailing all the processes within the
organization necessary to treat water in order to obtain the
requested quality/quantity for a specific purpose;
3) Water use, which includes the water management of all
the tasks within the industry where water is requested to
produce the specific organizational outputs;
4) Wastewater treatment, involving processes where wastew-
ater is treated within the organization before releasing it
into the environment or recycling it.
The interface between the organization and the environment is
delineated by the input resources (i.e., energy, raw material, etc.)
entering each process, the input water identifying water coming
from multiple sources (e.g., ground, surface water, rain, brines,
saline, brackish, recycled black, and gray water), the output
resources such as air and land emissions from each process as
6 [Online]. Available: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/100813_en.html
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 67, NO. 3, AUGUST 2020
well as the aquifer that collects the disposal water that cannot
be recycled since this part returns back to the water treatment
in order to make water management more sustainable. Fig. 1
shows the five processes of the water management system.
For the sake of generalizability, we decided to keep the frame-
work as simple as possible though reflecting the real-world
situation within the organization under study.
III. METHODOLOGY
A. Research Setting
The case study used to validate the proposed method concerns
the Volvo Group in Sweden. Precisely, the data collected within
the EcoWater7 project gave us access to relevant information
about two manufacturing plants of Volvo Trucks. Volvo Trucks
is a global truck manufacturer based in Gothenburg, Sweden,
owned by AB Volvo. In 2016, it was the world’s second largest
manufacturer of heavy-duty trucks.8 Volvo Trucks is the first
to have adopted a holistic approach to the footprint assessment,
meaning they pay attention to the production, usage, and end-of-
life stages of their product development. In fact, they created an
environmental footprint calculator, which takes into account the
environmental footprint of the entire lifecycle of their trucks.9
The two sites where we collected our data are, respectively,
located in Umeå (northeast of Sweden) and Tuve (southwest
of Sweden, close to Gothenburg): Volvo Trucks Umeå is a pro-
ducer of truck cabins, whereas Volvo Trucks Tuve (Gothenburg)
produces frame beams and has a vehicle assembly line. There is
neither a common water source nor a common wastewater treat-
ment facility between these two sites; rather, they are linked
together by the delivery of produced cabins from the Umeå site
to the Tuve site, where the cabins are used in the assembly
line. The Umeå site also delivers truck cabins to other Volvo
Truck’s facilities outside Sweden; however, these are not taken
into account in our paper.
7 [Online]. Available: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/100813_en.html
8 [Online]. Available: https://www.volvogroup.com/content/dam/volvo/volvo-
group/markets/global/en-en/investors/reports-and-presentations/annual-
reports/annual-and-sustainability-report-2016.pdf
9 [Online]. Available: https://www.volvotrucks.com/en-en/trucks/
environmental-footprint.html
ROMENI et al.: ENHANCING ECOINNOVATION PERFORMANCE
Fig. 2. Technology implementation overview (see EcoWater project).
B. Data and Method
Taking inspiration from the EcoWater project, we first mod-
eled the processes of the water management system. Then, data
were organized within the framework of the smart water grid
(SWAG) strategic project at Altran. Values were assigned to the
inflowing water and wastewater flows. The boundaries between
what could be considered organization and what environment
were clearly identified. The following step was to search for a
correspondence between all the possible ways each water flow
could be measured and the available micro key performance
indicators (KPmIs) from the literature. Table I summarizes the
process-KPmIs matrix filled in with all the necessary informa-
tion about the baseline case study.
Afterward, we selected alternative technologies by building
simulated WFs and comparing them with the WF of the baseline,
searching for ways to substantially improve the current four
processes. The seven scenarios analyzed follow the adoption of
these different technologies.
Scenario 1: Membrane distillation (MD) in water treatment at
Umeå;
Scenario 2: Recirculation of water and degreasing agent at
Umeå;
Scenario 3: Electro-deionization (EDI) of recirculated water in
phosphating process at Umeå;
Scenario 4: Silane-based metal surface treatment at Tuve;
Scenario 5: Resource efficiency in terms of water use, electricity
use and material use;
Scenario 6: Pollution prevention;
Scenario 7: Circular economy, by focusing on technologies that
reuse, recycle, or recover.
The assessment is carried out under the assumption that tech-
nology implementation takes place at one of the Volvo Trucks
production plants, in the processes shown in Fig. 2.
Then, we calculate the key performance indicators per each
scenario and compare the results with the baseline visualizing
the differences through a graph. Although the advantage of hav-
ing a large number of KPmIs is undeniable when it comes to
having a finer-grained outlook of the changes, more aggregated
key performance (macro) indicators (KPMIs) are needed in or-
der to better support decision makers in the choice of the best
possible scenario. The WF is then an array that collects KPmIs,
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727
each of them describing different aspects that can be aggregated
using a functional unit that makes possible to compare them.
Once which indicators to put together to create a KPMI is de-
cided, weight needs to be assigned in order to sum up indicators
by using a weighted average. When the indicators are collected
and put together using a weighted average, a list of KPMIs is
obtained, and these constitute the WF array that will be used
in the next phases to make decisions about the best scenario in
our case paper. Simulations were performed by using MATLAB
Simulink software.
IV. FINDINGS
The following sections will briefly describe the modeling
strategy we adopted for each of the seven scenarios. Then, we
calculate the performance indicators by comparing them with
those of the baseline (Volvo Trucks).
A. Scenario 1: MD
MD belongs to a group of technologies for water treatment
used in the automotive industry with the specific objective of
implementing resource efficiency and reduce operating costs.
MD is a chemical unit operation that uses repellent (hydropho-
bic) membranes as a barrier for contaminated water. The process
takes place at temperatures below 100 °C and at ambient pres-
sure. The difference in vapor pressure between the heated side
and the cooled site causes the transport of vapor, this allowing
heated water to flow through micropores contained within the
hydrophobic membrane. Thanks to its surface tension, water
cannot enter the membrane but, when part of the water evapo-
rates, it can pass through the pores of the membrane, condensing
on the other side.
This technology might potentially replace the use of reverse
osmosis as a water purifying method before water use in the
processes of the Volvo Trucks case study. Furthermore, MD uses
heat and electricity to operate, so this needs to be considered
when comparing the data about baseline and other scenarios.
Also, MD creates some waste such as concentrate stream and
waste from pretreatment.
B. Scenario 2: Recirculation of Water and Chemicals
Recirculation of water and chemicals is not a specific tech-
nology, but it makes smart use of existing technologies and
belongs to a group of production chain technologies with the
specific objectives of improving resource efficiency, reducing
waste and pollution in the wastewater as well as operating costs.
In the automotive industry, it is possible, within the process, to
recirculate rinse water and chemicals from degreasing and phos-
phating process if the quality criteria of the process by cleaning
them to a certain degree can be fulfilled. To make the treatment
of rinse water more efficient, there is the need to concentrate in
small water volume the drag-out from the process baths; in or-
der to do so, a multiple counter-current rinse system is required.
By applying this rinsing technology, the process can often be
operated as closed water/low waste systems and through this,
the impact on the environment will be reduced.
The current situation at Volvo Trucks is that both production
sites in the study have counter-current rinse systems and recy-
cling of water in the process. It might be possible to reach even
lower water use by applying additional separation technology
for water recycling.
728 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 67, NO. 3, AUGUST 2020

TABLE I
PROCESS-KPMIS MATRIX FOR THE CASE STUDY

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ROMENI et al.: ENHANCING ECOINNOVATION PERFORMANCE 729

TABLE I
CONTINUED

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730
CONTINUED
C. Scenario 3: EDI
EDI is an alternative process to ion exchange. It belongs to
a group of technologies for water treatment used in the au-
tomotive industry with the specific objective of implementing
resource efficiency and reducing operating costs. EDI is an alter-
native process to clean incoming water for industrial processes,
where high water quality is needed. EDI uses electrical current
to regenerate cation and anion resins. It is similar to a combina-
tion of electrodialysis and ion-exchange within one process. The
ion exchange resins are placed between the ion-selective mem-
branes; they act by separating the ions from the water stream
during the treatment.
This technology needs a pretreatment to safeguard the ion-
exchange that is accomplished with reverse osmosis. These two
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 67, NO. 3, AUGUST 2020
TABLE I
steps together might potentially replace the use of conventional
ion exchange as a water purifying technology before water use in
the process of Volvo Trucks case study. Moreover, it uses mainly
electricity to operate; hence, the environmental impact from
electricity production needs to be considered when comparing
the data about baseline and other scenarios.
D. Scenario 4: Silane-Based Metal Surface Treatment
Silane-based metal surface treatment belongs to a group
of technologies for production chain used in the automotive
industry with the specific objective of implementing resource ef-
ficiency and reducing hazardous waste, pollutants in the wastew-
ater as well as operating costs. A silane-based surface treatment
ROMENI et al.: ENHANCING ECOINNOVATION PERFORMANCE
can be used as a replacement of zinc, manganese, and iron phos-
phating; it will provide paint bonding and corrosion protection,
and it is comparable to the zinc phosphating process in terms of
quality.
By using this technology, the chemicals are free of Zn and Ni
and have a limited amount of P; on the other side, they contain
silicon and zirconium as active elements, substances that have a
positive effect on the effluent wastewater. The aim of using this
different treatment is that it can operate with proven less water
use than traditional phosphating surface treatment. In the case
study baseline, traditional zinc-phosphating is used at both of
the modeled Volvo Trucks production sites.
E. Scenario 5: Resource Efficiency in Terms of Water Use,
Electricity Use, and Material Use
The resource efficiency technology scenario was chosen as a
combination of those technologies that, in their individual as-
sessment, have a positive effect on the consumption of resources
(i.e., water, energy, and scarce elements).
The technologies that make up the resource efficiency sce-
nario are silane-based surface treatment (at Tuve) and recircula-
tion of process water and chemicals (at Umeå). The assessment
of those two combined technologies shows an increase in eco-
efficiency for all the indicators compared to the baseline.
F. Scenario 6: Pollution Prevention
The pollution prevention technology scenario was chosen as
a combination of those technologies that, in their individual
assessment, have a positive effect on the emissions to water and
air in the foreground. In this case, there were no emissions to
air in the foreground, hence technologies were chosen solely on
their potential to reduce water pollution.
The technologies that make up the Pollution prevention sce-
nario are Silane-based surface treatment (at Tuve), MD (at
Umeå), and recirculation of process water and chemicals (at
Umeå).
G. Scenario 7: Circular Economy
The circular economy technology scenario was chosen as
a combination of those technologies that promote the circu-
lar economy. In this case, we have chosen technologies that
either use more district heating or result in an increased
process-internal recirculation.
The technologies that make up the circular economy sce-
nario are MD (at Umeå) and recirculation of process water and
chemicals (at Umeå).
H. Key Performance Indicators Calculation and
Comparison
Data about each simulated scenario were collected and sys-
tematically introduced into the process-KPmIs matrix. Then,
the differences with the baseline are shown by highlighting the
cell that changes in values. After completing this, the modified
KPmI is selected and compared with the respective baseline
KPmI in order to show the differences and extrapolate useful
information.
A complete comparison of all the differences between the
baseline and the seven different scenarios is performed. Thus,
to visualize the information, we generated a table (see Sup-
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731
plementary material) where different (normalized) values from
the baseline are highlighted with the respective scenario’s color.
Then, the percentage differences with the baseline are calculated
and the process-KPmIs matrix is updated with the percentage
values.
With these values, it is possible to create graphs that enable
to show for each scenario, which are the differences of values
in each process for each indicator. However, before putting on
the graphs the KPmIs and their differences with the baseline,
it is necessary to verify that all of them have the same “scale
of value,” namely that each of them is considered favorable
when it is high or low. So, a “high” or “low” evaluation was
assigned, and since “low” represented the majority of them, it
was chosen as the rule and the “high” indicators were changed by
calculating their reciprocal. Fig. 3 graphically summarizes these
findings.
The former graphs provide the decision maker with a micro
perspective (KPmIs); however, in order to further help decision
makers, we generated some KPMIs by aggregating those with
similar properties. Then, we associated them with the processes,
removing those to which no KPMIs could be associated (i.e.,
water treatment and water abstraction); instead, as the number of
key performance indicators for the water use was almost double
compared to the other processes, we decided to split it into
water use and chemicals water use. The former is still related
to the general use of water in each process, whereas the latter
is about the chemical side of the use of water. We then checked
whether—and how often—each KPMI constituting the macro
one showed up in which processes. This becomes a measure of
impact: it means that if the KPmI with high-frequency changes,
it (potentially) has a bigger impact on the KPMI. Once the
weights are chosen, the aggregation inside the KPMI can be
done by using the weights and by calculating a weighted average
(see Table II). Since each performance indicator was classified
as favorable (or unfavorable) if positive (or negative) compared
to the baseline, it is possible to have an aggregated information
about the implications that a variation of a value in a specific
scenario can cause on the final KPMI: with 1 ࣘ m ࣘ 7 being
m the number of scenarios, 1 ࣘ t ࣘ 6 being t the number
of KPMIs, and 1 ࣘ p ࣘ 6 being p the number of processes
within the water management system. Through this, it will be
possible to make a decision about the goodness of the changes
that a scenario brings and, above all, choosing the scenario
that better improves the performance of the processes in the
plants.
I. WF Assessment and Comparison
To achieve a whole picture and summarize all the information
obtained from the former comparison, the creation of a more
aggregated indicator is needed, and this is the reason why the
WF is generated. In fact, through the WF it is possible to collect
all the values of the KPMIs, comparing them among the different
scenarios.
In order to create the WF, the values for each KPMIs cor-
responding to each scenario (last column of Table III) are
collected and put into another matrix (see Table IV) with the
aim to show for each KPMI, which is its value in the different
scenarios, and for each scenario, which are the KPMIs perform-
ing at best. Hence, a WF for each scenario is created, as a vector
with six rows corresponding to each macro indicator’s final
value.
732 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 67, NO. 3, AUGUST 2020

Fig. 3. KPmIs’ changes per scenario with respect to the baseline (from Scenario 1 on top to Scenario 7 at the bottom).

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ROMENI et al.: ENHANCING ECOINNOVATION PERFORMANCE 733

Fig. 3. Continued

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734 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 67, NO. 3, AUGUST 2020

Fig. 3. Continued

TABLE II
PROCESS-KPMIS MATRIX

In fact, in order to make a decision about which scenario is
the best possible for our case study, the different values of the
KPMIs need to be compared and a final value that represents
their sum. Once the WF is created, it is possible to make con-
clusions and choices about the best scenario. Then, we compare
the final values of all the WFs for each scenario and highlight
which one has the best value. In order to choose that, it should
be recalled that there is the need to define if the performance
indicator is favorable when it is high or low compared to the
baseline. This will be used also in this step: in fact, if it was
decided that all the indicators are favorable when they are high
(low), so the best scenario is the one that has the higher (lower)
value of the WF.
It could happen that not only the total value of the WF is useful
to make decisions, but also the value of each single KPMI can
contain important information. In fact, it could happen that not
all the KPMIs inside the WF increase or decrease together, but
on the contrary some show differences. This consideration can

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ROMENI et al.: ENHANCING ECOINNOVATION PERFORMANCE 735

TABLE III
KPMIS CLASSIFICATION

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736 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. 67, NO. 3, AUGUST 2020

TABLE III
CONTINUED

lead to a deeper study to understand which part of other scenarios
can be used to improve that KPMI that shows different behavior
in comparison to the others. Results are shown in Table V.
A graphical representation makes results more intuitive (see
Fig. 4).
The WF of Scenario 6 (pollution prevention) looks promising,
as well as the one from Scenario 5 (resources efficiency). In-
stead, the implementation of technologies related to the recircu-
lation of water and chemicals (Scenario 2) leads to the worst WF.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we investigated the role firms have in tran-
sitioning toward more sustainable manufacturing processes.
Firms are increasingly implementing ecoinnovations in their
processes in order to better use of scarce natural resources such
as water. By relying on data coming from two manufacturing
plants of Volvo Trucks (Umea and Tuve) in Sweden, we were
able to describe a method to assess the WF in the manufacturing
industry. Seven scenarios—pertaining to seven different new
technologies that can be potentially adopted to improve the
WF—were simulated and compared with the baseline. The
recirculation of water and chemicals guarantees the best
possible WF between the two plants.
Some theoretical and practical implications can be derived
from this paper. The theoretical contributions revolve around
process innovation, ecoinnovation, and the WF literature. When
it comes to process innovation, we showed the role and impact of
specific technologies intervening into processes of big firms re-
orienting their operations toward more sustainable approaches.
This also concerns the adoption and use of ecoinnovations and
their integration alongside existing operations. We also con-
tributed to research about the WF; in that we showed how spe-
cific key performance indicators can be used at different levels

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ROMENI et al.: ENHANCING ECOINNOVATION PERFORMANCE
TABLE IV
KPMIS-WF MATRIX
TABLE V
WF ASSESSMENT
Fig. 4. WF assessment.
(micro and macro) in order to characterize the process innova-
tions and assess the antecedents and consequences of different
scenarios.
From a practical perspective, we generated a method for the
qualitative and quantitative assessment of the WF in the man-
ufacturing industry. This methodology can provide managers
with a useful tool to compare different scenarios in order to
understand how many changes in the processes impact the indi-
cators. Indeed, for each scenario, it is possible to calculate the
value of the WF showing the difference between each scenario
and the scenario chosen as the baseline (Volvo Trucks, Swe-
den). Also, results show that not only the methodology is able
to provide a gap analysis between different scenarios, but also
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737
that it is possible to identify the best scenario for each process.
Hence, both micro and macro decision-making processes can
be enacted in order to improve the state-of-the-art processes.
This is the major contribution both in terms of WF assess-
ment methodology and of micro and macro key performance
indicators reasoned integration.
This paper does not come without limitations. First, the
methodology should be scaled by taking better into account
exogenous factors, assessing their influence on the internal
decision-making. Second, we focus on one case study; although
these results can be generalized, some limitations can emerge
and small adaptation should be made to the framework. In fact,
by testing a consistent number of case studies, it is possible to
find out how the methodology performs in different organiza-
tions and in various domains and to enlarge the database up to
the ideal limit where all the possible micro and macro key per-
formance indicators are contained in the database. It could also
be possible to integrate the database with a machine learning
system able to update the system and learn from the decision-
making micro and macro key performance indicators choice, in
order to be able in the future to recognize immediately the more
suitable indicator for a new case study when all the data are put
in to it. Finally, other parameters have to be included such as
vulnerability [49] in order to reduce the uncertainty related to
the water management systems, then lowering the likelihood of
negative environmental impact.
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Giulia Romeni received the M.Sc. degree in manage-
ment engineering from the University of Pisa, Pisa,
Italy, in 2018.
She is currently a Business Analyst in banking-
IT solution development with Sopra Steria Consult-
ing, Paris, France. Her master’s thesis focused on the
study of smart grid water and was the result of a col-
laboration between the Research Center of the École
de Management Léonard de Vinci, Paris, and Altran
Company, Paris. Her research interests include in-
dustrial and product engineering and IT solutions to
deliver services in order to better manage industries and products.
Francesco Paolo Appio received the Ph.D. de-
gree in radical innovations from Scuola Superiore
Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy, in 2013.
In 2016, he was an Associate Professor of Inno-
vation with École de Management Léonard de Vinci,
Paris, France, where he was the Head of the Business
Group in 2017. He is currently a Visiting Researcher
with Bocconi University, Milan, Italy, MIT Sloan
School of Management, Cambridge, MA, USA, and
K.U. Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. His research inter-
ests include paradoxes and tensions in organization
studies, investigated at micro- (individual, team), meso- (firm, industry), and
macrolevels (ecosystem).
Dr. Appio has recently been appointed as a member of the Editorial Board
for the journal Technological Forecasting and Social Change. His research has
been published in Long Range Planning, Technological Forecasting and Social
Change, International Journal of Production Research, Industrial Marketing
Management, among others. He is Guest Editor of multiple special issues in
journals such as the Journal of Product Innovation Management, Technological
Forecasting and Social Change, the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING
MANAGEMENT, and Journal of Urban Technology.
Antonella Martini received the Ph.D. degree in en-
gineering management from the University of Roma
Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy, in 2000.
She is currently a Full Professor of Management
with the University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, where she
teaches Strategic Analysis and Competitive Intelli-
gence. She has been a board member of the Continu-
ous Innovation Network and President of CIMEA, the
Center for Academic Mobility and Equivalence. Her
research interests include organizational ambidexter-
ity, competitive intelligence, and innovation.
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739
Benjamin Mercat received the Ph.D. degree in
physics from the University of Rennes, Rennes,
France, in 2017.
He is a Physicist who has completed his thesis in
the interphase of biology and mechanical modeling.
His work allowed to characterize the mechanics of
the intracellular structure responsible for the chro-
mosome’s separation during the cell division. Since
2017, he has been with the Intern Research Depart-
ment, Altran Company, Paris, France, where he man-
ages the SWAG project.
Alan Jean-Marie received the Ph.D. degree in con-
trol of deposition and decomposition of cobalt precur-
sors in the design of cobalt Fischer-Tropsch catalysts
from Lille 1 University, Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France,
in 2010.
He is currently a Chemist with the Intern Research
Department, Altran Company, Paris, France, where
he coordinates about 15 R&I projects in the field of
energy and industry of the future (energy recovery,
energy storage by hydrogen, conception of small and
modular reactor for nuclear, methods and tools for
the dismantling of nuclear plants, smart grid, new multifunctional materials,
sustainable performance, recycling processes, etc.).
Christian Joubert received double Graduate de-
grees from Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France,
in 1975, and Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural, des
Eaux et des Forêts, Nancy, France, in 1980, work-
ing on the sanitation of the wastewater of Port-Cros
island, the city of Hyres and Borrels villages by la-
gooning methods.
From 1981 to 1988, he was with the Centre Scien-
tifique et Technique du Bâtiment, Marne-la-Vallée,
France, a French public institutional reference and
research center. In 1989, he was a CTO and Senior
Expert of system engineering and safety with MATHIX, where he achieved
about 130 projects for high-level clients (e.g., railways, nuclear, avionics, au-
tomotive, naval, etc.) using formal, model checking, simulation and calculator
methods. After a few independent complementary experiences, in 2011 he
joined ALTRAN Research Department, Paris, France, where he is currently
an Engineer in charge of an important R&D internal program aiming to build
up-to-date methods and tools for system design and safety.