VOC Emissions from Manufacturing Processes
6. Strategy
| 6.1 | Product development |
| 6.1.1 | Measures |
| 6.2 | Production planning |
| 6.2.1 | Supply of feedstocks |
| 6.2.2 | Planning activities |
| 6.2.3 | Education and further company-internal training |
6.1 Product development
Definition
For practical purposes, product development signifies an integrated development of new products and processes, for which all significant risks and environmental impacts throughout the product life cycle have been considered right from the time of start of development.
Key indicators of product development are the principles of ecological efficiency and of inherent safety.
Ecological efficiency
A measure of the ecological efficiency is the value added per consumed or polluted environmental unit. Ecological efficiency therefore describes the ratio of economic utilization to a key ecological factor.
Principle of ecological efficiency:
Minimization of use of resources instead of disposal of resulting wastes and emissions by
environmental clean-up technology |
Inherent safety
The inherent safety is a product/process characteristic necessarily limiting the risk to a level predetermined by the design. The measure of inherent safety is determined by the magnitude of remaining risk potential.
Principle of inherent safety: Elimination or
reduction of risk instead of subsequent control of risk by monitoring and taking safety
precautions. |
Tools essential for implementing product development are, alongside drawing up the ecological balance, also market analysis, cost analysis and risk analysis.
Today, enterprises are confronted with the challenge of securing and expanding their existing market situation - as a rule with newly launched products - while at the same time exploiting competitive advantages by innovation and strengthening core competencies.
The decision for product development, for example to cut emissions of volatile organic compounds, cannot be made by an enterprise in isolation.
Critical influences are the external market constraints - competitive pressure, price development, supply and demand - and the acceptance and willingness to co-operate of the actors in the market - strategic partners, customers, competitors, material and service suppliers.
6.1.1 Measures
Product development for cutting emissions of volatile organic compounds signifies specifically for the paint and coatings industry:
 | modification of recipes and/or |
| modification of the manufacturing process |
with the objective of preventing such emissions completely or limiting them to an unavoidable minimum.
Prevention and reducing emissions at source requires that the approach to achieve this must be adopted for the company's own development of products at an early stage, since as development proceeds, the possibilities for intervention rapidly reduce.
Under economic aspects in particular, the latitude for action should thus be exploited in the early phases of product and process development, to permit decisions to be taken that are advantageous for the enterprise over the long term. Despite time pressures and the meager data available at the start, this requires systematic examination of the available knowledge on possible actions and orientation.
To cope with integration of all relevant information, it is important that:
| the development process as a whole is broken down into practical phases, to each of which are unambiguously assigned the requisite personnel resources, budgets, tasks and intermediate objectives |
| the results of each phase are evaluated under consideration of the general objective, and when necessary, corrective measures initiated |
| users and customers are tied into the overall development process at an early stage |
| communications between persons from differing backgrounds of experience, such as marketing, sales, research and development, engineering and production, are promoted |
| an effective exchange of information is maintained between parallel lines of development, initiated in the interest of speeding up the process |
Options for improving the emissions situation at a production site are as follows:
| analysis and possibly restructuring of site-specific product ranges on the basis of the ecological balance and a cost-benefit analysis |
| company internal restructuring of production, taking in all operating sites, involving concentration of production of emissions-relevant intermediate and final products at one production site, possibly allowing more cost-effective implementation of production modification and post-production pollutant clean-up under consideration of the legal situation at specific sites |
| integration of new low-emission products and processes that have already been developed by third parties or have been launched onto the market |
6.2 Production planning
6.2.1 Supply of feedstocks
It is noted right at the outset that the inducement for adopting strategic measures in connection with feedstocks supply is frequently the exploitation of economic advantages, like more favourable purchases, reduction of tied up personnel resources and shortening of lead times.
Reduction or avoidance of diffuse emissions of volatile organic compounds, arising in particular when decanting feedstocks from supply containers to dosing containers, during batching in the as-supplied condition or dosing into open tank systems, is in this respect a beneficial consequence under environmental aspects.
The basis for evaluating measures
The basis for evaluating measures in connection with feedstocks supply comprises:
| analysis of consumption structures: |
segmental distribution frequency of use use quantity categories quantity consumption per component and time interval number of components
| analysis of costs of feedstock provision: |
form of supply supplied unit quantities form of storage stored unit quantities
The objective
The objective is to clearly present the structures of consumption and the current costs of feedstock provision, and so derive savings potentials.
Possible cost-cutting and emission reducing measures are:
- switching the form of supply from small casks to, for example, tanker trucks
- conversion of storage systems from small casks to, for example, tank systems or container shelving
- conversion of dosing to fully automated, closed systems
The effectiveness of preventing and reducing diffuse emissions is almost 100%.
The capital investments for such conversions must be determined for the specific company and site circumstances. Nevertheless, in particular for companies with a very large product range, small batch sizes and a wide diversity of feedstocks, savings as follows are possible:
| by exploiting purchaser advantages: up to 5% |
| by reducing the staff requirement: some 5 to 10% |
| by reducing the costs of disposal for one-way containers/drums: up to 50% |
6.2.2 Planning activities
Frequently, the adoption of strategic measures in connection with production logistics is prompted by the exploitation of economic advantages, like enhancement of flexibility and upgrading of production capacity by shortening through flow times, and reducing tied up personnel resources.
Reduction or prevention of diffuse VOC emissions in particular, which arise especially during cleaning, is in this context more of a positive subsidiary effect, benefiting the environment.
The basis for evaluating measures
The basis for evaluating measures in the area of production planning is:
| analysis of processes |
batches, batch sizes machine occupation times lead times equipment setting times demands for energy and operating supplies availability quality
The objective
The objective is to present the production complexity and associated costs in the value added chain in a transparent way as well as derive savings potentials from these.
Possible cost-cutting and emission reducing measures are as follows:
| switching from linear, order-oriented production (from basic feedstocks) to manufacture from semi-finished products taken from stock |
| outsourcing manufacture of intermediate or final products |
| outsourcing of functions, like container cleaning, to external service providers |
A decision about outsourcing must be based on a total environmental evaluation. It is obvious that moving the operation is not a solution without documentation for better technology at the subcontractor.
The principal emission sources, referred to pollutant loadings, in production are dissolvers, mixing tanks, open mills and cylinder mills as well as solvent-based tank cleaning. Subsequent process steps play more a subordinate role, and can be neglected when drawing up a rough balance of emitted pollutant loadings.
The loadings of emitted VOCs at production equipment and tanks are determined essentially by the number of charges and cycles of cleaning over an investigation period. Potentials for preventing or reducing emitted pollutant loadings throughout the entire production chain are virtually linearly dependent on the potentials for cutting the number of charges and shortening cycles of cleaning.
Potentials for avoiding emitted pollutant loadings during tank cleaning are more or less a linear function of the number of tanks. By switching from solvent-based tank cleaning to water-based (alkali) cleaning, VOC emissions can be prevented completely.
When investing in new equipment, this option should be investigated under technical and economic aspects.
6.2.3 Education and further company-internal training
Reductions of VOC emissions can be achieved by improved housekeeping, like increased attention to correctly operating air outlet valves.
Therefore, in-depth training of operatives is desirable.