Identification and Classification of Action Plans Influencing Sustainable Production, using Repertory Grid and Principal Component Analysis Case Study: Industrial Production Companies in Semnan Province

The production sector has come under severe pressure to both cope with its problems and maintain competitiveness, by such factors as diminishing natural resources, climate change, worsening environmental pollution, ecological incompatibility of the industrial age activities with the environment, and the decline in quality of human life due to the increasing global industrialization. Meanwhile, sustainability, especially in production, and progress towards sustainable production have grown in importance for developed countries aiming to overcome their challenges for a sustainable development. Sustainability is an increasingly significant need for human activities, and achieving a sustainable development has turned into a major priority for human development. Sustainable development is a landscape that simultaneously targets social, economic, and environmental issues in general within the process of development. Meanwhile, the concept of sustainable production, which is intertwined with the concept of sustainable development, targets manufacturing companies and service providers. This study is focused on sustainability of manufacturing businesses, aiming to both identify sustainable production constructs, and evaluate and classify programs that can play a more effective role in this regard. First, dimensions and constructs of sustainable production were identified through interviews and relying on repertory grid technique, from the viewpoint of 33 managers in successful industrial production companies with at least five consecutive and sustainable years of activity across Semnan Province in Iran. Then 33 personal repertory grids and a total of 175 primary personal constructs were elicited for sustainable production. These constructs were explored and analyzed, and an aggregated grid consisting of 87 secondary constructs was drawn. Next, using principal component analysis (PCA), the principal constructs contributing to sustainable production were categorized into two major concepts and their components were determined