Co-processing of Industrial Waste in Cement Kiln – A Robust System for Material and Energy Recovery

AbstractWaste management is a serious issue around the world. It is most prominent in the developing countries. Non–hazardous industrial waste is another aspect at 100 million tons/year with coal ash accounting for 70 million ton/year in India. It is the second highest waste stream ending up in landfill site. The quantity is projected to be increased at faster rate in coming years with increasing industrialization. This industrial waste has characteristics of municipal solid waste with percentage of non-biodegradable waste on the higher side. Co-processing of this waste for energy recovery and as an alternative raw material in cement kiln can be an effective management methodology for this waste stream. This is being practiced sustainably in number of countries but in India the process lacks proper implementation. The auxiliary technological requirement is less and the process is highly economical and effective. This study specifically shows the effectiveness of the co-processing in cement plants in India, as a way for an effective utilization of energy and recoverable raw materials locked in the industrial waste. The robustness of the co-processing of industrial waste has been analyzed based on three cases studies in India. The findings revealed that it can be one of the most effective industrial waste disposal techniques in India and in other developing countries considering other practices of waste disposal methodology in terms of zero ash generation, emission, less auxiliary technology requirements, less set up cost, etc. The robustness of the co-processing as a waste disposal technique was also revealed by the economic and environmental statistical analysis. The study shows the sustainability of co-processing as an energy and material recovery process and addresses the issues related to sustainable management of industrial wastes. Number of study is available in the literature but analysis based on multiple case studies specific to Indian scenario is scarce

Impact of Lean and Sustainability Oriented Innovation on Sustainability Performance of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises: A Data Envelopment Analysis-based framework

Lean and Sustainability Oriented Innovation both enhance competitiveness of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in a sustainable way. Lean is efficiency focused, whereas Sustainability Oriented Innovation emphasizes on responsiveness. Although lean and sustainability oriented innovation have been separately researched, there is a gap in knowledge on the combined effect of lean and sustainability oriented innovation (SOI) on SMEs Supply Chain sustainability. SMEs have limited resources and face numerous competition. Therefore, their supply chain sustainability can only be achieved through most appropriate trade-off between economic, environment and social aspects of business. The purpose of this paper is to understand the combined effect of sustainability oriented innovation and lean practices, on supply chain sustainability performance of SMEs. The study uses a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) based framework and applies this to a group of SMEs within the Eastern part of India. Lean and sustainability oriented innovation are considered as input criteria, and economic, operational, environmental and social aspects are considered as output criteria of the proposed framework. DEA segregates inefficient SMEs and suggests at least a SME to benchmark. Subsequently, the study undertakes qualitative approach to suggest improvement measures for the inefficient SMEs. The results reveal that combined lean and SOI helps achieve SMEs' supply chain sustainability. The findings are useful for policy makers and Individual SMEs' owners and managers to undertake measures for improving sustainability. Theoretically this research contributes a DEA-based framework to study the effect of combined lean and SOI on sustainability that helps improving SMEs’ sustainability performance

Time Evolution of a Supply Chain Network: Kinetic Modeling

Resilient supply chains are often inherently dependent on the nature of their complex interconnected networks that are simultaneously multi-dimensional and multi-layered. This article presents a Supply Chain Network (SCN) model that can be used to regulate downstream relationships towards a sustainable SME using a 4-component cost function structure - Environmental (E), Demand (D), Economic (E), and Social (S). As a major generalization to the existing practice of using phenomenological interrelationships between the EDES cost kernels, we propose a complementary time varying model of a cost function, based on Lagrangian mechanics (incorporating SCN constraints through Lagrange multipliers), to analyze the time evolution of the SCN variables to interpret the competition between economic inertia and market potential. Multicriteria decision making, based on an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), ranks performance quality, identifying key business decision makers. The model is first solved numerically and then validated against real data pertaining to two Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) from diverse domains, establishing the domain-independent nature of the model. The results quantify how increases in a production line without appropriate consideration of market volatility can lead to bankruptcy, and how high transportation cost together with increased production may lead to a break-even state. The model also predicts the time it takes a policy change to reinvigorate sales, thereby forecasting best practice operational procedure that ensures holistic sustainability on all four sustainability fronts

Waste management in USA through case studies: e-waste recycling and waste energy plant.

USA has improved waste management system than many other countries, namely India, China, Middle East countries and South Africa. In 2012, Americans generated about 251 million tons of trash. It recycled and composted almost 87 million tons, equivalent to a 34.5 % recycling rate. US recycled and composted nearly 0.69 kg out of the individual waste generation rate of 1.98 kg per person per day. Whereas, in 2012, 3.412 million tons of e-waste was generated in the U.S, nearly 30% is recycled and 70% is trashed. The paper presents the status of the WTE and WEEE recycling plants in the US and analyse their sustainability through two case studies at 20 tpd e-waste recycling plant at 48th Street Transfer Station and the 80 MW Covanta waste to energy plant in Philadelphia, USA based on the study visit in 30th ICSW 2015. The transportation of the MSW feedstock to wte plant is done by the railway wagon with a robust supply chain. The e-waste recycling plant dismantles the materials in semiautomatic conveyor & crusher, segregates and packs both manually and with electronic eye. Plastics, metal, glass and the equipment for reuse are segregated here. The plant sends this material to materials recycling plants. Both the plant has different business case. The study will be helpful for the researchers and the stakeholder in different countries

Strategic maintenance technique selection using combined quality function deployment, the analytic hierarchy process and the benefit of doubt approach

The business performance of manufacturing organizations depends on the reliability and productivity of equipment, machineries and entire manufacturing system. Therefore, the main role of maintenance and production managers is to keep manufacturing system always up by adopting most appropriate maintenance methods. There are alternative maintenance techniques for each machine, the selection of which depend on multiple factors. The contemporary approaches to maintenance technique selection emphasize on operational needs and economic factors only. As the reliability of production systems is the strategic intent of manufacturing organizations, maintenance technique selection must consider strategic factors of the concerned organization along with operational and economic criteria. The main aim of this research is to develop a method for selecting the most appropriate maintenance technique for manufacturing industry with the consideration of strategic, planning and operational criteria through involvement of relevant stakeholders. The proposed method combines quality function deployment (QFD), the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the benefit of doubt (BoD) approach. QFD links strategic intents of the organizations with the planning and operational needs, the AHP helps in prioritizing the criteria for selection and ranking the alternative maintenance techniques, and the BoD approach facilitates analysing robustness of the method through sensitivity analysis through setting the realistic limits for decision making. The proposed method has been applied to maintenance technique selection problems of three productive systems of a gear manufacturing organization in India to demonstrate its effectiveness

Biomass & Bio-waste Supply Chain Sustainability for Bio-energy and Bio-fuel Production

AbstractThe terrestrial biomass feedstock can be generally categorized into two groups. The first group includes corn grain, sugarcane, soy bean, oil seed, etc. The second group of terrestrial biomass feed stocks, the cellulosic biomass, can avoid adverse impacts on food supply, because they are non-starch, non-edible and non-food feedstocks. Cellulosic biomass feed stocks can be obtained from a number of sources, such as agricultural residues, forest residues and energy crops. Currently, most bio-fuels are made from these feed stocks, due to the maturity in technologies and lower unit production cost. However, the use of these feed stocks for bio-fuel production might have implications both in terms of world food prices and production. Agricultural residues are typically plant parts left in the field after harvest (e.g., corn stover), as well as the secondary residues like manure and food processing wastes. Bio-fuel policies play an important role in the development of the energy sector specifically in the developing countries. The profitability of bio energy and bio-fuel production is significantly influenced by policies affecting multiple sectors such as agriculture, research, industry and trade. Identifying relevant policies and quantifying their specific impacts is difficult given the variety of policy instruments (taxes, subsidies, price support, etc) and the way they are applied. While reviewing the literature and the implementation projects, it has been observed that one of the main challenges is to develop an efficient and robust supply chain management system for sustainable bio-energy and bio-fuel production. There are many research activities found on bio-energy and bio-fuel production but the number of implementation as a business case is scant in the developing countries including India. Present study has reviewed the biomass and bio waste supply chain for bio energy and bio fuel production and investigated the cause of the major challenges and issues in India. It also proposed some feasible solutions for the developing countries. It may be concluded that the main challenge lie on the feedstock supply, farmers’ choice for traditional use of biomass, economy of scale, efficiency, export of output energy and the major issue being the government policy. The study will definitely help in implementation of bio-energy production projects and the researchers for further improvement

Puvasol Therapy In Psoriasis

50 patients of extensive plaque type, palmoplantar pustulosis and recalcitrant psoriasis were subjected to puvasol therapy. 40% showed good response and 60% poor response without any major side effect. Low response group when conjugated with topical agents produced good response