TAKING A RISK-BASED APPROACH TO SUSTAINABILITY AND OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE IN MANUFACTURING

Manufacturing risks extend beyond
the boundaries of the site

Risk management tools are employed in some shape or form on most manufacturing sites. The two most common areas in which they are used are for safety and plant maintenance purposes, where risk- based approaches are used to identify potential failures and devise mitigation strategies to prevent these failures from occurring. In theory, the development of integrated quality management systems encompassing safety, food safety, product quality, environmental issues and more recently issues such as energy efficiency should involve some kind of risk assessment. In fact, a risk assessment should be the foundation of such systems. 

For reasons I refer to below, many organisations tend to gloss over this important step and their risk registers are not as comprehensive as they should be. They tend to identify risks through some kind of brainstorming process, which is not in itself a bad approach, but can lead to a “high-level” assessment of operational risks if the process is not sufficiently focused. The problem in manufacturing environments is that some very large risks tend to have very small origins – the v-belt that is not tensioned correctly and catches fire, burning down the facility; the valve that passes and contaminates large quantities of food products; the extraction fan that is never switched on and increases long-term occupational health problems for employees through solvent inhalation....I could go on. While management teams can and must identify strategic risks, operational excellence is largely about small details.

One of the major impediments to rigorous risk assessment is that it is resource-intensive. In the maintenance environment, Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) is an example of an approach that is shunned due to the amount of resources required to partition a manufacturing plant to the required level of detail, identify failure modes at the component level and then devise maintenance tasks to prevent failures using decision trees. However, without making this investment in time upfront, potentially catastrophic failures can go unidentified, and while the maintenance programme may be improved after such failures occur, the costs incurred in learning lessons in this way can be very high.  

A second challenge for those wishing to identify risks comprehensively is that this requires subject matter expertise. If a group of people spends a considerable amount of time conducting risk assessments but lacks this expertise, the chances are the risk assessment will have serious shortcomings. So resources will ultimately be committed but wasted, leading to disillusionment with the process when unforeseen incidents occur. It is therefore vital that significant investments are made in technical training and coaching, in order to equip employees to participate productively in risk assessment events.

By now you can see where I am going with this. Comprehensive, rigorous risk assessment is an essential element of any strategy aimed at sustainable, stable, continuously improving operational performance. Of course, risk assessment is only the first step, solutions still need to be developed and implemented to mitigate each individual risk in order to realise the benefits. The philosophy is simply that if we can identify and mitigate every risk, we will achieve excellence. This is in essence a lofty goal, since in practical terms, we will never be able to prevent every potential incident. However, if we try our best to eliminate every risk, those that remain will be small in number, and can be handled as they arise in line with PDCA. If we chose to deal with every risk after the fact with no risk identification upfront, we would be fire-fighting, and if your facility tends to operate in an unstable fashion, chances are your risk management practices need review.

The machinery through which risks are mitigated is comprised of the various management systems in place. Quality Management Systems specify overarching policies, how manufacturing process units should be operated, the parameters to be measured, reporting, corrective actions and the like – essentially everything that needs to be in place to ensure that excellent product quality, high levels of safety, responsible environmental performance and other key objectives are realised. These are however not the only systems through which risks may be managed. Preventive maintenance programmes are a vital component of risk management in the manufacturing environment. Human resource risks also require serious consideration, and require standardised and rigorous processes and standards for their management. Cost control procedures are a further example of tools employed to manage risk. Many of these supporting systems reside in IT platforms. The organisations that are best at developing and implementing quality management systems integrate these disparate systems into the overall quality management system through explicit linkages.  In general, the greater the number of unique systems you have to integrate, the more difficult the task, and if you could build an integrated system from the ground up you would have the ideal management system.

The complexity of quality management systems and the other programmes manufacturers may be implementing at any point in time (such as continuous improvement programmes for example) can lead to bureaucracy and confusion. In many cases a fixation with the system rather than its efficacy means that results are erratic and do not exhibit sustainable improvement. I am not knocking quality management systems or continuous improvement programmes, both of which are important vehicles for the achievement of operational excellence and sustainability. I do however believe that there is a need for manufacturers to “get back to the basics” insofar as obtaining and harnessing a fundamental knowledge of their operations is concerned. Risk assessment provides an ideal vehicle for doing so. It does however mean examining physical and business processes in minute detail, and yes, this is time consuming and requires a lot of skill and knowledge to do effectively. Once this has been done, the mitigation measures developed, if implemented rigorously, will however go most of the way towards solid, repeatable operational performance. Quality management systems provide the ideal vehicle for execution of these mitigation measures. Continuous improvement programmes require this sound foundation to be effective. Risk assessment therefore lies at the heart of the well-oiled manufacturing machine, particularly if the same approach used to identify risks is also used to unearth opportunities.  In a future post I will give you an example of a detailed, integrated, process-level risk assessment that will illustrate how powerful this approach can be as a platform for operational excellence and sustainability.

Copyright © Craig van Wyk, 2013. All rights reserved

PRODUCT-RELATED FACTORS WHICH IMPACT ON SUSTAINABILITY

Quality management at source reduces rework and 

environmental impact. Manufacturing is however only 

one aspect of a complex product life cycle.

The products produced by industrial organisations have a marked impact on their environmental footprints. Understanding these impacts requires review of the life cycle of each product, from the time it is conceived until the time it is ultimately disposed of. Ideally, life cycle considerations should be at the heart of organisational decision-making, since it is through designing products to be sustainable that the biggest gains can be made rather than through optimising existing processes. In this post I will explore this thinking further and illustrate, with examples, the impacts of products on sustainability.

The individual stages of the physical life cycle of a product are as follows:

• Sourcing of raw materials
• Manufacturing
• Distribution
• Use/consumption
• Disposal

Before this physical life cycle can be effected, the product concerned has to be designed and developed. This is arguably the most crucial phase for any product, since decisions made here flow through to every phase of the physical life cycle. There are also of course strategic decisions to be made as to which types of products to produce, with these decisions having not only environmental impacts, but also social and economic ones. Industries such as the tobacco industry and even the cellular telephone industry, where radiation impacts are a matter of much discourse, are cases in point. While these complex issues are not the subject of this post, the point is that organisations need to take a life-cycle view of product matters if they intend to take sustainability issues seriously. Let’s explore the different elements of the product life cycle to better assess how each impacts on an organisation’s environmental footprint.

Sourcing/Extraction of Raw Materials

Every raw material has its own environmental footprint, encompassing impacts on air, land and water. It is possible to estimate these impacts, but given the various pathways through which an individual material can be sourced, it should be understood that impacts are not definitive. For example, coal sourced from an underground mine will require more resources for its extraction than coal sourced from an open-cast mine. Published sources of information on factors such as embedded carbon for example should therefore be read in this context.

It is nevertheless possible to consider order of magnitude differences between materials, and to make decisions based on these in terms of limiting their impact. Such information is however not the only criterion in choosing materials and the following considerations are also important:

•  What is the cost of the material (total cost of ownership, not just  the purchase price)?
• Is the material renewable?
•  If not, how scarce is the material?
•  Is the material recyclable?
• Is the material biodegradable?
•  How hazardous is the material?
• What are the social impacts of using this material – for example, are there significant health impacts    for workers in the source industry or for consumers?
• Each material itself has a life cycle, which typically includes some processing – what are the impacts of this life cycle for individual materials?
• What downstream impacts does the material have – for example, some materials result in lower in-process yields than others by virtue of their inherent characteristics?

In some instances it is not possible to substitute one material with another without compromising the product, and in such cases manufacturers should explore comparisons between different producers, or using materials in proportions which minimise their impact wherever possible.

Manufacturing

The manufacturing phase of the product life cycle has the potential for significant impact, simply because it is generally energy-intensive, can produce a significant amount of waste and can be hazardous, both for employees and local communities. It is however by no means guaranteed that this is where the biggest impacts are. For example, some agro-processors use much more water during cultivation of crops than during their processing. 

On the whole however, manufacturing is very important due to the diverse nature of the environmental impacts concerned, which include:

• Consumption of energy through various energy carriers, including electricity, coal, gas, oil and other fossil fuels;
• Consumption of a wide variety of materials, each with their own footprints – these obviously need to be utilised as efficiently as possible;
• Consumption of water – this water may be returned to the environment as vapour or as a liquid discharge, but in some cases may be permanently removed from the water cycle e.g. water bound in the ash dams of coal-fired power stations;
• Pollution of water resources – where treatment of water takes place, there is generally a hazardous waste stream which requires safe disposal, and hence continues to impose risk;
• Pollution of the air – hazardous pollutants from manufacturing activities can cause immediate health risks, but can also enter the food chain through deposition on land and water;
• Pollution of land – land pollution can result in the destruction of otherwise useful land areas and pose serious risks to human and animal health. Where the land concerns interacts with the aquatic environment, or where pollutants are volatile, the pollution can be dispersed widely;
• Risks to consumers – use of critical materials, contamination during manufacturing or manufacturing defects can injure consumers or pose serious health risks;
• Occupational health risks – these vary by industry, but exist in just about all industrial environments. The range of hazardous materials employees and local communities can be exposed to, even in seemingly benign industries, is staggering.

Driving sustainability on industrial sites requires strategic decision-making as well as superior operational competencies. While the product concerned plays a huge role in the environmental footprint of the site on which it is manufactured, there are generally a number of process options available to achieve the same end. For example, choosing chlorine dioxide bleaching over elemental chlorine bleaching has a marked impact on the amount of persistent organic pollutants (such as dioxins, furans and polychlorinated biphenyls) produced by the pulp and paper industry.

Operational excellence implies that less waste is produced, and hence, for a given process scheme, organisations with superior competencies will have smaller footprints than those that are wasteful.

Distribution/Transport

Distribution encompasses transport and storage of product, and is another area that can be significantly influenced by product design. For example, a product requiring refrigeration or heating during distribution will have a larger energy footprint than one which does not. Where this is unavoidable, clearly the most efficient ways of doing so should be sought. The transport of product can also be facilitated by designs that promote efficient stacking, thereby ensuring that the mass of product transported per individual load is maximised.

The mode of transport chosen is also important – rail is known to produce lower emissions than road transport, for example. Within individual modes, efficiency differences can make a significant impact, and these are not driven by technology alone. For example, eco-efficient driving techniques can significantly reduce fuel usage, and when married to tracking technology as a management tool, can deliver large cost savings and emission reductions.

Product Use/Consumption

Products should be safe to use and incur limited environmental impacts during their use/consumption. In fact, some products are positive from an environmental perspective, for example renewable energy technologies or waste-water treatment plants, to name a few.

Increasing resource costs are forcing consumers to consider environmental impacts more closely, and are driving efficiencies upwards as consumers seek to reduce energy consumption, water use and material usage. Eco-labelling is another trend that is driving sustainable consumer products, though such labels tend to be fairly narrow in focus, focusing exclusively on energy or water consumption and not pollution potential, for example. 

The table below outlines some of the impacts associated with the use of a selected group of products, for purposes of illustration.

PRODUCT	IMPACTS ARISING FROM USE
Washing machine	Electricity and water consumption, chemical consumption, pollution of water resources/loading of wastewater treatment plants
Instant coffee	Electricity and water consumption, materials required to facilitate use (sugar and milk), generation of wastewater, water and chemicals required to wash dishes after use, empty container to be disposed of once coffee is finished.
Motor vehicle	Fuel consumption, emissions, contamination of land (oil leaks), life cycle impacts arising from routine maintenance, tyre consumption, oil consumption, water consumption
Blue jeans	Same qualitative impacts as washing machine when washed

Some complex products are comprised of a number of other smaller products, which are used as the overall product is used, and each of which have their own impacts arising from use. Motor vehicles and their components are examples of such products.

What should be clear from the above is that product design plays a major role in the nature and extent of the impacts arising from use. Strategies for limiting these impacts include:

• Designing products to consume less energy, water and materials, to be inherently safe and to produce as little pollution as possible
• Educating consumers such that the frequency of resource-hungry and polluting activities is minimised e.g. switching off electrical appliances when they are not in use

Product Disposal

Some products (e.g. food products) are consumed during use. Such products are therefore not disposed of after use, though there may be waste streams arising from their use which require disposal. Examples would be the containers in which the food was packaged. Other products are disposed of in their entirety after use, a prime example being consumer appliances. Disposal has environmental impacts, most of which depend on the materials out of which the product and its packaging are constructed.

In general, the higher the level of recyclability of these materials, the better. Many materials are also biodegradable, though there will be emissions generated during their degradation. In some instances (and particularly in the case of anaerobic biodegradation), these emissions could be captured and used as fuel for activities such as power generation and heating, in which case their impact would be ameliorated.

In the case of critical materials (examples would be materials such as persistent organic pollutants, asbestos, silica, mercury and lead, among others) the human/animal health and environmental impacts are serious and disposal has to be managed carefully. In many cases such materials can be recovered for reuse, while in others, they are being phased out of use e.g. PCB’s in transformers or asbestos in roofing products, in which case safe disposal becomes the more likely option.

    

What then are the key take-outs from this post?

• Products have an enormous impact on the environmental footprint of an organisation's activities;
• Impacts are not necessarily highest in the manufacturing phase;
• The earlier on in the product life cycle you intervene, the better the opportunity to decrease downstream impacts. The design stage offers the highest leverage for limiting life-cycle impacts;
• Material choice is crucial, not only because each material has impacts associated with sourcing it, but also because materials influence product life cycle impacts significantly;

There are significant challenges facing organisations that take a life-cycle approach to product management. The issues pointed out in this post do not refer to any of the business challenges against which product-related sustainability challenges need to be balanced. The reality of business is that manufacturers are typically not held accountable for life-cycle impacts, making short-termism a very real threat to sustainability efforts downstream of the distribution phase of the product life cycle. 

It is vital to get actively involved in downstream product management, where there are opportunities for manufacturers to gain direct financial benefits. An example would be the reuse of containers, as practiced by users of steel drums. With the costs of reconditioned drums typically being significantly less than the cost of new drums, life cycle impacts are reduced in tandem with a reduction in input costs. The reconditioning industry also creates jobs. Finding more win-win situations like this one should dominate the thinking of sustainability-focused industrial organisations and those responsible for the policy and regulatory environments.

TAKING A SYSTEMS VIEW OF RESOURCE EFFICIENCY – A SIMPLE EXAMPLE FROM THE BREWING INDUSTRY



Making the linkages between sub-systems is

important for overall resource efficiency

A fundamental principle of Cleaner Production is to optimise systems rather than individual system elements. When partitioning a system into sub-systems for analysis, it is important to draw a boundary around the broader system you are analysing to ensure that in dealing with resource efficiency problems in one part of the system, you are not introducing unintended consequences elsewhere. I will use the example of centrifugation in the brewing industry to show how resource efficiency impinges on other operational issues such as product quality and throughput, and how taking too narrow a view can result in unexpected problems. If a systems view is not taken, these problems are difficult to solve, and could actually result in a negative overall efficiency position for the system despite apparent efficiencies in an individual area.

Centrifugation is a common unit operation in industry and is used to separate materials of different densities through the application of centrifugal force. It is applied globally in the brewing industry to separate yeast from green beer, with the beer than passed on to additional clarification processes such as filtration. Disc stack centrifuges use conical discs stacked on top of each other, with the product to be clarified passing through the spaces between the discs. As the centrifuge bowl rotates at high speed, yeast is pushed against the inner surfaces of the discs and is forced downwards into solids pockets in the bowl. The clarified beer passes up the centrifuge and exits, while separated yeast accumulates in the centrifuge. This yeast is periodically removed by momentarily opening the bowl and then shutting it to prevent an excessive loss of beer.  This process (called “de-sludging”, “discharging” or “ejection”) is well illustrated by this short video

There are a number of ways to initiate a centrifuge discharge. One way is through the use of a timer, in which case the centrifuge bowl will open and shut at a pre-determined frequency. This is not really desirable, since it leads to variations in the concentration of the yeast slurry discharged and in the clarity of the centrifuged beer. The second is through the use of in-line instruments which measure the clarity of the beer passing through the centrifuge, and then prompt a discharge when this clarity level becomes unacceptable i.e. when there is too much yeast in the beer exiting the centrifuge. Turbidity meters are an example of a typical instrument that can be used in this application, and work by measuring the amount of light absorbed by the beer, which is considered to be inversely proportional to its clarity. The turbidity level in the beer exiting a centrifuge tends to increase in the periods between discharges as the bowl fills with yeast and more and more yeast is carried over into the clarified beer stream.

From a resource efficiency point of view, the objective here is to discharge the yeast from the centrifuge in as concentrated a form as possible while meeting the clarity requirements of the beer being processed. The more concentrated the yeast is, the less beer there is associated with the yeast, and beer is the valuable resource we wish to preserve in this process. It is also likely that any beer associated with waste yeast will ultimately be disposed of to the brewery effluent system, which would either impose an additional load on the brewery’s wastewater treatment plant or that of the local municipality. 

Centrifuges can typically achieve a maximum yeast concentration of 80% by mass in the centrifuge discharge, and it is common practice to dilute this yeast with water to permit pumping.  It is a simple matter to measure yeast concentration in the diluted yeast slurry (through centrifugation in a laboratory) and then to use the alcohol concentration of the supernatant, together with the alcohol concentration of the beer being processed to back-calculate the yeast concentration at the centrifuge discharge. This should generally be done at defined volume intervals over the course of a batch, along with measurements of the yeast count in the incoming beer (expressed as 10^6 cells/ml).   

The factors (outside of design) that impact on the efficiency of a centrifuge are many, and include:

• Beer flow rate – higher flows reduce the residence time in the centrifuge, which reduces separation efficiency. Also, a centrifuge has a maximum solids (i.e. yeast) removal capacity by virtue of the capacity of the bowl and the maximum discharge frequency permitted. If the rate of solids inflow exceeds this maximum removal capacity, there will be excessive yeast carryover into the clarified beer. The solids inflow rate depends on the beer flow rate and the yeast concentration in the beer being processed. This latter factor can vary significantly over the course of a batch – see my comments about this later.

·    Inlet pressure – high inlet pressures can lead to excessive losses of product, since effectively the volume discharged increases above that desired. Yeast and clarified beer are forced out of the bowl during discharge instead of yeast only.

·    Turbidity set point – clearly, higher set points promote a thicker yeast discharge from the centrifuge. Remember however that the clarity requirements still need to be met.

·    Discharge volume – modern centrifuges are equipped with timers which control the volume discharged (obviously assuming a fixed beer inlet pressure).

·    Operating water pressure – there needs to be sufficient pressure to keep the bowl closed when required, and to close it as quickly as required.

There are also equipment-related factors that can cause the bowl to leak, though such problems can be detected by alarms (e.g. an alarm indicating low bowl speed due to the braking action of the leaking product or an alarm highlighting a reduced back-pressure) and of course, the entire control philosophy employed relies on instruments that are working correctly. A useful way to track centrifuge losses is to measure the frequency of operation of the yeast removal pump, with frequent running indicating large losses. It should be obvious from these points that the various controls available in operating a centrifuge have to be considered in concert.

So what has all this got to do with the need for a systems approach you ask? Centrifuges are typically employed as part of a much bigger process system. For example, consider the use of a centrifuge downstream of fermentation in the lager brewing process. As shown below, the centrifuge would remove yeast remaining in fermented beer, which is then transferred into the storage/maturation process. After storage, the beer is typically filtered and then filled into containers.

Maximisation of the yeast concentration in the discharge of the centrifuge would require the use of a high turbidity set-point, implying significant carryover of yeast into the clarified beer stream.  While some yeast is required for the storage/maturation process to remove residual oxygen and for continued flavour development, too much yeast can cause a range of quality problems, including:

• Beer haze (cloudy beer and which results in excessive filter circulation, reduced throughput and increased energy and powder consumption at filtration);

• Foam problems (since yeast contains proteolytic enzymes which can be released into the beer as the yeast autloyses – beer foam is principally comprised of high molecular weight protein materials);

• Yeasty off-flavours in the final product, which affect drinkability.

Yeast transferred to storage along with the beer being processed will continue to sediment out, and a portion (that which settles out) is typically removed prior to filtration. However, some yeast will remain in suspension and excessive yeast carryover from the centrifuge will translate into a higher yeast count at filtration, and hence a more rapid increase in filter inlet pressure than would be the case with lower yeast counts (assuming the brewery uses constant-flowrate powder filtration). This results in increased product loss at filtration, and overall, losses could therefore be far more than the product “saved” through operating the centrifuge at a high outlet turbidity. In addition to product loss, filtration problems would increase the usage of filter powder (a non-renewable resource), increase the cleaning cycles required per unit volume of beer filtered (incurring increased cleaning chemical and energy usage) and would also increase the electrical energy required (as pressure drop across the beer filter bed increases due to increased yeast load, so does the power required to maintain the required beer flowrate). The point is that the "optimisation" of a centrifuge in isolation can be to the significant detriment of the system within which that centrifuge operates.

Taking this thinking further, this "systems approach" should also extend upstream of the process being optimised. Yeast management practices upstream of the centrifuge can have a significant impact on the resource efficiency of the centrifugation process if we consider that the amount of yeast carried over to storage/maturation can be considered a limiting factor, or constraint. The extent of this carryover depends on the turbidity setpoint employed, as discussed earlier, but also depends heavily on the amount of yeast that is in the beer being processed. Yeast flocculates and then sediments to the bottom of the fermenter once the nutrients required for yeast growth are removed from the green beer. The majority of this yeast is typically removed some time before the beer is transferred through the centrifuge.  Immediately prior to transfer, it is good practice to remove additional sedimented yeast. If this is not done, the first portion of beer being centrifuged will contain an excessive amount of yeast, and even with discharges at maximum frequency, a centrifuge will not be able to achieve the targeted turbidity level since the bowl will fill very quickly. The result could therefore be excessive yeast carryover. As a consequence, the only way that the overall yeast count at maturation could then be achieved would be to run the centrifuge at a low outlet turbidity for the remainder of the transfer, which translates into discharge at low yeast concentration, excessive ejections and therefore excessive loss of product. One control philosophy could be to use an algorithm to reduce the beer flow rate based on a combination of outlet turbidity and discharge frequency (discharge volume could also be varied depending on the capabilities of the centrifuge concerned), but it is still necessary to use good yeast management practices, since otherwise overall brewery throughput could be compromised.  This is particularly true where the transfer process is a constraint.

In conclusion, process losses at breweries are not just about minimising losses in each area, but about finding the right balance between individual areas such that the losses in the overall system are optimised. This logic extends beyond the few limited areas discussed here, and can in fact even be extended to the balancing of  losses in the manufacture of brewing raw materials such as malted barley with how those losses impact on subsequent process losses in brewing. The value of a systems approach in resource efficiency cannot be underestimated, and I will illustrate this further in future posts using examples from other industries. The implications for manufacturing organisations as regards how sustainability performance is measured and managed are fascinating and often counter-intuitive.

Copyright © 2013, Craig van Wyk, all rights reserved

Key Sustainability Considerations for Industrial Organisations

Sustainability is a goal rather than an outcome, the pursuit of which requires the careful integration of economic, environmental and social considerations. No organisation can truly call itself sustainable, and hence we are talking here about something aspirational. Implementing sustainability within your organisation should not be viewed as a project, but rather as a journey.

Organisations operate within complex ecosystems comprising their customers, suppliers, competitors, the natural environment, the regulatory environment and every aspect of society, all of which are in a state of flux. It is ultimately the sustainability of the system, not the organisation, that is the goal. Organisations therefore need to ask the question: " What is our contribution to the sustainability of the system?". The formulation of concrete actions at all levels of an organisation in response to this question is at the heart of sustainability strategy.

Industrial organisations generally have significant environmental footprints, generate significant economic value and have large social impacts, both in terms of job creation and the health and safety of local communities. The geographic reach of their operations extends not only through their supply chains, but also into the marketplace. For organisations serving consumer markets this reach can be long and diffuse, and is often global in scale. Industrial organisations seeking to become more sustainable clearly have a wide range of issues to confront, but what are the key considerations for an industrial player starting the sustainability journey? The following are my views on the key elements of industrial sustainability:

A Life Cycle approach

The sustainability focus of many manufacturers is on the manufacturing site itself, but sustainability is about product life cycles. Sustainability should already be a consideration at the product design stage, and must extend from the extraction of raw materials, through to manufacturing, use and disposal of the product. The economic, environmental and social impacts of every stage of the product life cycle must be incorporated into sustainability strategy.

Pollution Prevention

In evaluating this life cycle, pollution of the air, land and water resources is something to be avoided, preferably through addressing problems at source. Risk assessment is a useful methodology for the determination of potential impacts and the incorporation of mitigation measures. Greenhouse gas emissions may be considered to be a part of this pollution.

Resource Efficiency 

The conservation of energy, water and materials has a multiplier effect in terms of benefits for the environment. For businesses there are significant short and long term cost benefits arising from resource efficiency projects, particularly considering that for manufacturers, raw materials and work in process costs far outweigh fixed costs such as manning. 

Operational Excellence

Waste is the enemy of sustainable business practice, and here we refer not only to physical waste but the squandering of any resources which contribute to organisational success. Industrial organisations need to produce products reliably, at low cost and according to strict quality standards. In doing so, capital assets need to be efficiently utilised, new technology needs to be seamlessly introduced and existing processes need to be improved continuously.

Skill Development

It is necessary to build capacity at all levels of an organisation in order to apply sustainability principles. The sustainability-focused organisation is necessarily a learning organisation, able to adapt to its environment, incorporate past lessons into future actions and most of all, willing and able to turn all aspects of operations into learning opportunities. This has implications for how knowledge is managed.

Employee and Community Health and Safety
The health and safety of employees and local communities impacted upon by an organisation's operations are of vital importance, both from a moral point of view as well as from the perspective of productivity. Individual organisations should be well-versed with industry-specific threats such as PVC fumes in the plastics extrusion business, or mercury pollution associated with coal-fired power generation, as examples. Product safety is a further area of critical importance. The food industry has developed formalised processes such as HACCP, but other consumer products also pose threats to consumers/users and these risks need to be evaluated and mitigated. 

Social Responsibility

Contributions to social causes should begin with a focus on employees and then extend to local communities and the wider customer base of the organisation. The approach should be one of investment, not charity, and it is eminently possible to align CSR initiatives to organisational goals in a manner which generates tangible returns. For example, investments in education in local communities, such as bursary schemes at tertiary institutions for disadvantaged youth, can generate a pipeline of quality human resources for employment in the organisation's operations.

Economics

The financial health of an enterprise is its primary concern as regards economic sustainability. Without this aspect of sustainability being on target, the other aspects of sustainability soon won't matter much, since there may not be a business to make more sustainable. This will rely on growth in revenues and the control of costs. Sustainability strategy and business strategy clearly need to be aligned. There are invariably opportunities for organisations to impact on the local economic policy environment and in making investment decisions, impacts on other economic actors should be carefully considered.

I have focused on environmental aspects of sustainability since this is my area of specialisation. The environment, economy and society should never be seen as discrete elements to be tackled individually but as part of a singular system. Paying slave wages to cut operating costs is not sustainable. Neither is cutting corners regarding the provision of personal protective equipment to staff, or polluting the environment in order to avoid treatment costs. Sustainability is however not only about constraints. Increasing raw material yields is a powerful way to boost margins. Raising environmental standards in the manufacturing process can provide access to new markets, and is gaining currency with consumers. Recycling of wastes can generate new revenue streams. These are just some of the opportunities available to those pursuing sustainability as a way of doing business. And this is what makes this growing field so exciting! Sustainability as a philosophy has deep moral roots, but the business opportunities presented by this approach should not be underestimated.

HOW MAINTENANCE PROGRAMME DEVELOPMENT IMPACTS ON INDUSTRIAL SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainable industrial enterprises maximise competitive advantage through pollution prevention, the efficient use of resources, the provision of a safe working environment, the sale of sustainable products that are safe to use, excellence in operations and of course socially responsible practices. If we take the time to think about it, we quickly realise that very few, if any, of an organisation’s management disciplines do not have a bearing on these outcomes.

From Human Resources to Finance, Risk Management to Engineering, Logistics to Procurement, all functions affect an organisation’s sustainability performance. Fundamentally, this is why an organisation that wishes to become sustainable has to embark on an organisation-wide change initiative. Risk assessment and mitigation is, I believe, at the heart of such change.  

I find that in many organisations, the maintenance function is seldom on board with issues of sustainability, aside from prolonging asset life and maintaining production levels. The issue comes down to how maintenance programmes are developed, and the irony of this situation is that the frameworks used for maintenance programme development are eminently well suited to the identification and prevention of machine-related sustainability risks.

Maintenance programme development is about identifying potential failures and then devising appropriate preventive maintenance tasks to prevent those failures from occurring in the first place. Alternatively, certain failures may be allowed to happen on the understanding that their consequences are too small to warrant preventive action and that once they occur, they will be detected rapidly and corrected. Thus the preventive maintenance effort specified is a function of the consequences and probability of failure. Of course, where safety risks are concerned, these are given due priority, even if their probability is low. Safety is traditionally given due consideration in most maintenance programmes, not least because of the legal implications of safety incidents. Maintenance tasks can involve the monitoring of condition (and here a wide and growing portfolio of technologies and work practices are available to maintenance practitioners), basic operator tasks such as cleaning, lubrication and tightening, and specialist maintenance tasks involving reconditioning or replacement of components.

What is a failure? This is an absolutely vital definition which sets the tone for the entire maintenance programme development process. A failure occurs when an item loses its ability to function as designed. One of the first steps in failure identification is to define the function of every component being analysed accurately and comprehensively. Hence the function of a gasket may not only be to contain product inside a pipeline (economic), but also to prevent water pollution arising from spills (environmental and safety of local communities), as well as to keep employees safe in the case of high-temperature product (safety). The failure mode may be identical for each of these issues, but clearly the consequences are very different.

Failure identification and the quantification of the consequences of failure are typically achieved by assessing machines at the component/sub-component level, brainstorming potential failures for each component and assessing the consequences of failure on a ranking scale. It is crucial that while this exercise begins at the micro level, individual failure consequences are considered at the system level, looking first at the machine, then its role in the production line, within the entire organisation and ultimately the wider environment. It is at this crucial step in preventive maintenance programme development that issues of sustainability are best integrated into the maintenance effort.

The best vehicle for achieving this is in my experience the Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) framework, but in itself it will not deliver a comprehensive, sustainability-focused risk analysis. It is vital that the team that participates in the analysis is comprised of individuals with the competencies necessary to identify sustainability risks. This means that maintenance programme development cannot be the sole preserve of maintenance engineers, technicians and artisans, and must involve operational specialists. It is also important that the FMECA is facilitated by a knowledgeable process expert who can ask the correct questions of the subject matter experts and elicit a comprehensive risk assessment.

While most maintenance programmes are designed to prolong asset life and maximise machine uptime, the sustainability-focused maintenance programme must not only consider failures that could result in consequential damage and employee safety risks, and which could reduce throughput, but also those which could result in product safety risks (including food safety), product quality problems (which could lead to rework or material losses or affect business through reduced sales), pollution of air land and water, reductions in energy efficiency, losses of materials and  wastage of water among others. It is not unusual for the failure of a single component to impact on a number of these issues, and it is easy to appreciate the depth of knowledge needed to link individual failures to these impacts. Once individual failures have been analysed, decision trees such as MSG3 can be applied to develop appropriate tasks. In this regard, the work of Nowlan and Heap (Reliability Centred Maintenance), developed over three decades ago to deal with preventive maintenance in the airline industry, remains relevant to this day.

A point I want to leave you with is that the failure of a component depends on two fundamental things – the stress placed on that component and the component’s resistance to failure. The latter is a function of design and statistical variations between individual components. The former is a function of how the machine concerned is operated, and will include operator work practices, the effectiveness of maintenance processes (here I refer specifically to consequential damage) and even factors such as the nature of the raw materials being processed. Maintenance in itself cannot guarantee robust environmental performance, and for this other side of the equation, it is vital that quality management systems are developed with the same rigour as preventive maintenance programmes.

I will illustrate some of these concepts with a maintenance case study in a future post, so stay tuned.