MANUFACTURING SPECIALTY
CHEMICA Transform and Grow – Manufacturing Excellence in Specialty
Chemicals
With a focus on technology-enabled best
practices in speciality chemicals manufacturing, Eric Kaufman, Industry
Marketing Director at AspenTech (experts in software solutions) outlines ‘six
levers of manufacturing excellence’.
The specialty chemicals industry
looks in great shape – valued at over $850 billion in 2015, Global Market
Insights projects that the specialty chemicals industry will grow at 4.5%
Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) to reach $1,273 billion by 2024. Business
drivers include increasing populations, rising living standards and robust end
market growth. Not all is bullish, however. Competition is intensifying as more
producers focus on specialties, compounded by increasing end market demands and
tightening regulations. Producers seem rattled as they battle
fordifferentiation in this environment, offering progressively more tailored
products and services to secure customer loyalty. A key outcome of this fight
for differentiation is steadily rising operational complexity.
Six Levers of Manufacturing
Excellence
Many producers are realising that
the status quo in manufacturing cannot support the increasing complexity of
customers’ business models. Current manufacturing practices simply drive too
much variability, provide too little visibility and impose too much
inflexibility for today’s environment. A relentless focus on manufacturing
excellence is required to succeed, one that drives transformation through
technology-enabled best practices.
Here, we describe six levers that
constitute a roadmap for achieving manufacturing excellence goals and driving
step-change improvements in manufacturing performance.
Lever #1: Improve customer outcomes
End-use product performance is
the ultimate measure of success for specialty chemical producers, impacting
both selling price and customer loyalty. A common problem for many is
variability in product quality that drives inconsistent end-use product performance.
Leading producers have
demonstrated a number of practices to reduce quality variability and improve
customer outcomes. Real-Time Quality Monitoring uses a combination of measured
and inferred values to continuously calculate product quality objectives.
Golden Batch Profiling displays a real-time comparison of the current batch
trajectory to that of a perfectly produced batch. Procedural and Recipe Control
automates the step-by-step sequence from when an order is dispatched until the
final product is complete.
The results: producers improved
quality by 10-20%, enabled by manufacturing execution, advanced process control
and asset performance management solutions.
Lever #2: Increase customer
responsiveness
A high level of customer
responsiveness is a powerful differentiator, elevating selling price and
customer loyalty. Many producers face barriers to responsiveness, however,
including variability in order fulfilment and the inability to commit to short
notice orders.
Model-Based Scheduling, a method
for improving responsiveness, leverages models of manufacturing assets to
automate the evaluation of all potential production scenarios over extended
time horizons. Resource Sharing Optimization determines the optimal way to
share interchangeable equipment and resources between production lines.
Schedule Dispatch Automation provides real-time details of scheduled orders
directly to operations staff.
The results: producers improved
on-time order fulfilment by 8-12%.
Lever #3: Improve asset
effectiveness
How effectively assets are
utilized impacts manufacturing performance, customer satisfaction and
profitability. Producers commonly experience unplanned downtime and
inconsistent utilization, however, which degrades asset effectiveness.
A fundamental practice for
improving asset effectiveness, Real-Time Key Performance Indicator Monitoring
calculates and displays important effectiveness parameters. Reliability and
Availability Modeling evaluates the future effectiveness of an entire site
based on the reliability and availability of its individual components.
Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics forecasts impending equipment failures
and provides corrective actions to avoid them. Model-Based Scheduling and
Resource Sharing Optimization identify and remedy future utilization gaps.
The results: producers improved
overall equipment effectiveness and on-stream time by 2-4%, enabled by asset
performance management and scheduling solutions.
Lever #4: Increase production
throughput
Producers are under constant
pressure to extract higher volumes from their existing plants. Frequent
variability in batch and continuous production, however, limits production
growth by preventing “best demonstrated” throughput from being consistently
achieved.
Real-Time Process Monitoring uses
a combination of measured and inferred values to track batch completion,
minimizing batch cycle time. Golden Batch Profiling facilitates batch-to-batch
consistency. Procedural and Recipe Control enables consistently executed
start-ups, shutdowns and transitions. Advanced Process Control minimizes
variability in continuous processes by holistically managing all of the
complex, multivariable interactions that occur across an entire process unit.
Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics identifies emerging process upsets that
are invisible to operations staff.
The results: producers increased
production by 3-5%.
Lever #5: Reduce operating costs
Continuously reducing operating
costs by managing its major elements – energy consumption, raw material
efficiency and maintenance effectiveness – is vital to manufacturing
improvement. A common problem for producers is that the performance of these
major elements varies from day-to-day or batch-to-batch.
Procedural and Recipe Control
enables raw materials and energy to be utilized more consistently. Real-Time
Energy Monitoring provides continuous visibility of energy consumption to
maximize efficiency. Batch KPI Reporting generates detailed cost performance
attributes for a batch, facilitating continuous improvement. Advanced Process
Control delivers increased yields and reduced energy consumption, while
Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics reduce maintenance costs.
The results: producers reduced
operating costs by 2-5%.
Lever #6: Achieve sustainable
compliance
Documented procedural compliance
is becoming a requirement in certain specialty segments. A common problem for
producers is that compliance activities are time consuming and cumbersome,
often delaying product shipment.
Use of Electronic Batch Records
automates capture of all production information associated with a batch,
reconciling results against established procedures and specifications. Product
Genealogy tracks a product across the entire manufacturing process, from raw
materials to final packaged product. Procedural and Recipe Control, Golden
Batch Profiling and Batch KPI Reporting also facilitate compliance by improving
manufacturing consistency.
The results: producers have
reduced the burden of compliance and achieved faster product releases, enabled
by manufacturing execution solutions from AspenTech.
Specialty Chemical Producers are
at a Crossroads
Producers must transform
manufacturing practices to mitigate the growing operational complexity of
customers’ business models. The degree to which they embrace transformation
will impact customer satisfaction, market share and profitability in an
increasingly competitive specialty chemicals market.
Core to each of the six levers
described above are demonstrated, technology-enabled best practices that can deliver
measurable benefits in the form of improved product quality, more on-time
orders, increased utilization, higher production, lower operating costs and
streamlined compliance.
Published:
September 25, 2017
http://www.specchemonline.com/featuredarticles/transform-and-grow-manufacturing-excellence-in-specialty-chemicals
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