How to conduct cleaner production

assessments?

Presentation 7 – How to conduct cleaner production assessments? 1

 About Cleaner Production Assessments

Cleaner Production Assessment (CPA) is a core service of a cleaner

production centre. CPAs should be conducted in a systematic manner and
not on an adhoc basis. A structured, systematic approach is essential for
getting the best results and ensures that the outcomes of the CPA are
consistent with those identified in the organization's broader planning
process.

A generic CPA process consists of the following milestones:

1. Planning and Organization
2. Pre-assessment
3. Assessment
4. Feasibility analysis
5. Implementation
6. Monitoring

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 Benefits of CPA

• Identification , characterization and quantification of waste streams and

thus environmental and economic assessments of loss of resources
(material and energy).

• Identification of easy to implement low cost cleaner production options

which may be implemented immediately.

• Preparation of investment proposals to financing institutions that

involve high cost cleaner production options of technology or
equipment change.

• In fact, conducting CPAs is an excellent method of building the

competence of the staff at the cleaner production centre.

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 Generic Process of CPA

Sustain cleaner production Planning &

assessments organization
Prepare a cleaner
Involve employees
production plan
Organize a team

Implementation
& monitoring

Select feasible options

Pre-
assessment

Feasibility
Analysis

Conduct a walkthrough
Screen options Prepare an eco-map
Generate options Prepare a preliminary material and
Assessment
Conduct cause diagnosis energy balance
Prepare a detailed material and energy balance

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 Planning and Organization

A CPA can be initiated after a conscious decision has been made by the
management to take action. Planning and organization starts once one or a few
staff members of an enterprise become interested in cleaner production. This
interest is often the result of awareness-raising and training programmes.

The elements that are important for the successful start of a CPA are:

• Obtaining the commitment of the top management of the enterprise

• Involving employees of the enterprise
• Organizing a cleaner production team
• Identifying impediments and solutions to the CPA
as a process

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 Planning and Organization

• Signing an MoU with the centre

Obtain commitment of • Directing formation of a cleaner production team
top management • Making available the required resources and
• Being responsive to the results of CPA

• All staff (top-down, with shop-floor staff)

Involve employees
• Across all or limited departments

• For larger enterprises – core team plus sub teams

Organize a cleaner • For smaller enterprises – owner plus sub team
production team • Getting the right mix is crucial

• Attitudes
• Information
Identify impediments and • Technical
solutions to the CPA • Financial

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Organizing a Cleaner Production Team

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 Identify Impediments and Solutions
to the CPA as a Process

• Impediments in obtaining
information from some
departments

• Lack of awareness amongst

staff

• Lack of appropriate skills

amongst staff

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 Deciding the Focus of the CPA

Deciding the focus of the CPA involves making decisions

concerning:

• The scope; i.e. whether to include the entire plant or limit

it to certain units / departments

• The emphasis in terms of materials; e.g. water, energy or

chemicals

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 Pre-Assessment

Pre-assessment consists of four important steps:

1. Compiling and preparing the basic information; i.e.

• Preparing a Process Flow Diagram or PFD
• Preparing an eco-map using layout maps of the site / unit

2. Conducting a walkthrough

3. Preparing preliminary material and energy (M&E) balances

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 Compilation and Preparation of Basic Information

Preparation of Process Flow Diagram (PFD)

• Use block representation to denote operations

• Write the name of the operation, special operating conditions, Show

points of inspection or quality control, quantities (if available), use symbols

• Indicate batch or continuous operations

• Use colour codes to indicate different piping or material flow patterns

• Capture start up, shut down and maintenance related activities, seasonal
variations in production, etc. Best done by preparing a flowchart which
indicates how a process or unit operation is operated for a special situation.

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 A PFD for a Wet-textile Processing Factory

These operations arebatchwiseand each

Loading process batch comprises certain operations
such as washes etc. Fill and draw technique
is used. There are about 4 batches a day for
each process, i.e. 4 discharges / day
Storage
Indicates wastewater sampling location

Freshwater,
NaOH 50 kg/day BOD 400 mg/L
water 60000 L/day Scouring Liquid discharge pH 9.3

Alkali

NaOCl 50 kg/day Freshwater, Bleaching Liquid discharge BOD 200 mg/L

water 50000 L/day
Sodium
pH 6.3

Hypochlorite Air emission vapour

BOD 350 mg/L
NaOCl 50 kg/day Freshwater, Dyeing Liquid discharge
COD
pH
800 mg/L
8
water 50000 L/day
Chemicals Temp 80 °C

Dyes
Dewatering Liquid discharge

Drying Liquid discharge

BOD 650 mg/L

Chemicals Finishing Liquid discharge pH 10

to Quality Control
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 A Flow Chart Indicating a Process Operation in a
Wet-textile Processing Unit for Special Situations
(i.e. whether bleaching / scouring / dyeing is required)

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 Conducting a Walkthrough

• Walkthroughs are one of the best techniques for getting first-hand

information about a production operation within a short span of
time

• Walkthroughs should not be conducted on holidays, when

operations are closed, when production is low, and when equipment
is under maintenance
• Follow the PFD - Begin from the raw materials receiving area and end at the
department of finished products

• Cover all the support utilities such as boilers, power generators, fuel storage
tanks, pump-house, refrigeration plant, raw water treatment plant, wastewater
treatment facility, etc.

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 Conducting a Walkthrough – Dos and Don’ts

• Do not find faults – the walkthrough is not a fault finding mission

• Do not dominate the conversation

• Ask real and open questions; do not attempt to show your own
knowledge of the topic but to get information from the responsible
staff

• Ask questions only when absolutely required. Request explanations

if required

• Do not leave the group

• Conduct a closure meeting to capture findings of the walkthrough

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 What to ask in a walkthrough?
What to carry with you in a walkthrough?

Ask questions related to Walkthrough areas…

operating practices, • Workfloor or shop floor
housekeeping, equipment • Machines and Operations
maintenance and control, • Waste and Emissions
safety and health, waste • Labor
generation, handling etc. • Storage areas
• Utilities

• A camera to take photographs

Take with • A scrap book (A3 size) to make quick sketches, especially for layouts,
you….. eco-maps (see next section) and the PFD

• Color pens or highlighter to mark important points

• A tape recorder to record your site observations

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 Preparation of an Eco-map

• Eco-mapping is a very useful application for a cleaner production team to use

• Eco-mapping can easily capture observations made during the walkthrough

• Eco-maps visually present issues of concern, and can also note good practices

• Eco-maps are often the direct indicators of the housekeeping status of the
enterprise

• Colour coding and symbols may be used to show areas that have been monitored
or areas where problems will have to be dealt with on a priority basis

• Eco-maps can be made easily by using the layout maps of the site / unit

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 Preparation of an Eco-map (continued…)

Eco-mapping may be used for specific themes, such as:

• Water consumption
• Wastewater discharge
• Solid waste generation
• Odours
• Noise
• Dust
• Safety risks
• Environmental risks

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 Preparation of an Eco-map requires a Layout Map…

Preparation of layout maps

Key map: Show the location of the enterprise, access roads, neighbourhood
characteristics, and especially sensitive receptors

Layout map of the entire operations in the organization: Show the internal roads,
entry and exits, waste storage, processing, disposal facilities, utilities,
wastewater outlets

Layout map of key departments: Layout maps may be drawn for departments of
concern indicating the positions of the major equipment, water piping,
steam lines, drains and vents / stacks. Separate layout maps are required for
each floor

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Typical Layout Map for a Manufacturing Factory

N
Municipal
Not to scale Water
Main
Entrance
Supply
Exit Entry

ETP

Raw
Finished Material Storage
Product Storage

Utilities Quality Control

and Final Packaging 101.5m
Administrative
Block

Central Highway 05
30m
Stack for
emissions Manufacturing Process Line
Prod. Capacity 10,000 product items per day Toilet Block

Laboratories
Proposed Production line of capacity 10,000 product items per day

100m 100.5m 101m

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An Eco-map for Water for an Electroplating Factory

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 Preparing Preliminary Material and Energy Balances

A material and energy (M&E)

balance is a basic inventory tool,
which allows for the quantitative
recording of material and energy
Inputs Enterprise
Outputs inputs and outputs.
Raw materials or plant
Products,
Energy Useful by-
Water products The basis of the material balance is
Chemicals the PFD.
Wastes
Air emissions
Effluents An essential step in the M&E
Solid waste balance is to check that "what goes in
Heat losses
Off-specification products must come out somewhere."
By-products

All inputs should thus have related

outputs.

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 Understanding Material and Energy Balances

• Material balances are typically carried out to inventory of material flows

(raw materials, chemicals, water, energy etc.) entering and leaving a
manufacturing / service company.

• Energy balances are useful to find options to minimize the use of energy
or to recover the energy lost in the system.

• Preliminary M&E balances are normally set using secondary data,

supported by the information recorded during the walkthrough. Water and
energy bills paid give some idea of their consumption levels. On the output
side, production figures or orders serviced over a certain period of time
can give an estimate of average production. Often, approximate
calculations will need to be used, based on "typical" values given in the
literature.
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 Understanding M&E Balances (continued…)

• Generally, M&E balances at the preliminary level are best set by

examining three months data and computing monthly averages.

• Care should be taken to ensure that all quantification is expressed in the

right units (preferably SI units), that they are uniform, and that the
associated costs are provided

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 Assessment

• Preparation of detailed material and energy

balances

• Cause Diagnosis

• Option Generation

• Screening of Options

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 Detailed Material and Energy Balances

• It is probable that the cleaner production team finds substantial discrepancies in the
preliminary M&E balance.

• This may require revising of the data used for inputs and outputs, rediscussion on
assumptions behind the numbers or conduct of measurements.

• Hence, the next task of CPA is for the team to prepare detailed material and energy
balances around the PFD.

• Developing a detailed material balance for each operation is neither practical nor
relevant. The critical operations are generally chosen based on the focus of the CPA,
the results of the preliminary M&E balance, and the types of materials and
processes used (i.e. operations where hazardous materials are used or where materials
used are expensive or where materials are used in quantities exceeding the benchmarks).

• Detailed M&E balances are often performed when the processes have long operational
sequences

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 A Detailed Material Balance for a
Wet-textile Processing Factory

• An important last step in preparing an M&E balance is assigning costs to

the waste streams that have been identified in the balance.

• This could be the single most important step in convincing the

management of an enterprise about the value of cleaner production and
securing their commitment for all the further activities.

• Monetization of waste streams means that they should not only be

characterized in classical environmental terms such as BOD, COD,
concentration in liquid wastes, etc. The team needs to also characterize the
streams in terms of material content, which can then also be monetized.

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 A Detailed Material Balance for a
Wet-textile Processing Factory

While charging costs to waste streams, the team should consider the
following cost items –

• Cost of raw materials / intermediate products / final products lost in

the waste streams
• Cost of energy in waste streams, in terms of the energy consumed to
heat or chill them, cost of treatment / handling / disposal of waste
streams, including tipping or discharge fees if any
• Costs incurred, if any, in protecting the workers and maintaining safe
working conditions, the potential costs from a possible accidental spill,
discharge, or leakage.

Obviously, the high-cost waste streams would be the most

interesting ones to focus on from an economic point of view.

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A Detailed Material Balance for a
Wet-textile Processing Factory

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 A Detailed Energy Balance for a
Wet-textile Processing Factory

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Cause Diagnosis through the Fishbone Diagram

The cleaner production team now needs to start generating cleaner

production options.
Possible through conducting a cause diagnosis
exercise

This exercise involves asking the question “why? –

why did such a problem / outcome occur?”

Essentially an exercise to hypothesize over the root

causes of any problem / outcome

Can be conducted easily through the use of a tool

called the fishbone diagram

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Cause Diagnosis through the Fishbone Diagram (continued…)

Fishbone diagram

Four generic categories:

•Man
•Method
•Material
•Machine

Each generic
category has a
primary cause

Each primary cause has one or

more secondary causes

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Fishbone Diagram: Facilitating Cause Diagnosis for
low RFT in the Dyeing Process

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 Allotting Priorities to Causes Identified
in the Fishbone Diagram

• The causes identified in the fishbone diagram are “theorized” or “probable”

causes.

• Therefore, the extent to which each cause contributes to the problem has to be
calculated before any major decisions are taken.

• The cleaner production team would need to analyze the extent to which each
of these probable causes contributes to the principal problem – i.e. Right First
Time (RFT) is low.

• Such analysis is only possible through observations, record keeping, setting up

planned and controlled experiments designed to isolate the cause of the problem,
and specific tools such as the Pareto Analysis.

• These efforts will assist the team in validating the primary and secondary
causes, and prioritizing cause elimination.

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 Allotting Priorities to Causes Identified
in the Fishbone Diagram

Many cleaner production teams stumble at this juncture, since

estimating the relative importance of each probable cause
seems a wearisome task.
It cannot be stressed too much that teams should be strongly
encouraged to push through with this step completely, since it
can avoid significant wastage of time (and money) later on in
the CPA.

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 Cleaner Production Option Generation
through Brainstorming

Once the points of action and priorities are understood and listed, the cleaner production team should
move on to the logical next phase; i.e. option generation.

• Option generation is a creative process, and is best

performed, as in the case of the cause diagnosis, by the
Opposing team as well as the enterprise personnel.
Idea 1 Idea 1

Idea 4
Supporting • The option generation exercise is conducted through
Idea 1 brainstorming, a commonly used tool for generating
Idea 2 ideas
Supporting
Idea 3

Idea 3
• Given a particular item which needs to be resolved, the
Extension based on 1 team and the enterprise personnel have to deliberate on
to Idea 1 and 2 the ways and means of obtaining a solution to it
Supporting
Idea 3
• The principle question to be asked during the
brainstorming session would be "how - how does one
solve this particular problem effectively?"

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Cleaner Production Options - Categories

• Housekeeping

• Management and personnel practices

• Process optimization

• Raw material substitution

• New technology

• New product design

• Recovery of useful byproducts and resources

• Onsite recycling and reuse

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 Important Points to Remember During
Option Generation

• The team should always remember that in general it is better to not

generate a waste in the first place, rather than generate it and later
recycle or recover / reuse it. Therefore, the team should only consider
these options once all the others that could prevent waste generation
have been examined.

• Some of the chosen options may require major changes in the processes or
equipment or product redesign. Often, these will dramatically reduce waste
generation or increase productivity, but they also often imply considerable
investments.

• Certain chosen options would require thorough laboratory / bench scale /

pilot studies to ensure that the product quality does not degrade as a result of
their application, and that it is acceptable to the market

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 Feasibility Analysis

Screening of options

Technical evaluation Environmental Economic evaluation

•Materials and energy evaluation
consumption •Payback period
•Entire life cycle of the
•Product / byproduct •Net Present Value (NPV)
product
quality •Profitability Index (PI)
•On-site / off-site
•Improvement on Right neighbourhood •Internal Rate of Return
First Time (RFT) improvements (IRR)
•Human resource •Reduction in amount of •Sensitivity analysis
requirement waste / emission
•Ease of implementation •Reduction in consumption
•Cross-linkages with other of natural resources
options •Reduction in noise /
•Time for implementation odour / safety risks

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 Economic Evaluation

• Consists of analyses and computations of the evaluation criteria [e.g. pay

back period, Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR),
etc.] based on project costs and benefits

• A simple payback period is evaluated based on the annual savings and the initial
investment. Indicates the time period to return the initial investment
Payback Period in years = (Capital Investment/Annual Savings)

• Should be generally considered only as a ballpark assessment, as it ignores

depreciation of the investment made and time value of money. Usually,
investment decisions can only be made on the basis of payback period alone
if the investment required is low and / or the returns are high so that the
payback period is less than two years

• A better approach is to use the concepts of NPV and IRR. These concepts consider
the time value of cash inflows and outflows during the useful life of the investment
made
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 Economic Evaluation (continued…)

Economic evaluation therefore requires building information on:

• Capital costs associated with required investments (if any);

• Net revenue, which is computed as a difference between total revenue (that
is generally higher than the base case) and the operating costs (that are
typically lower in the changed scenario); and
• Rates of interest and depreciation to enable computation of the Present
Value
Net Cashflowi
NPV  (CF0 )  i 0
i n
•For computation of NPV:
(1  r )i

•CFo = Cash outflow in the first year (capital investment)

•r = opportunity cost of capital (i.e. for a rate of 10% ‘r’ would be 0.1)
•n = useful life of the investment in years

For an investment to be economically feasible NPV must be greater

than zero
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 Economic Evaluation (continued…)

• The PI is computed as the ratio of the present value of the total cash
inflows and the present value of the total cash outflows

• For an investment to be economically feasible, the PI must be greater

than 1

• IRR is essentially the rate of return of investment during its life by

way of net cash inflows (i.e. inflows – outflows)

• IRR is to be compared with the rate of interest of the borrowings that

may be needed from the market

Also carry out a sensitivity analysis by varying input and output parameters, costs
other indicators so as to get different scenarios – pessimistic and optimistic

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Example of Cash Inflows and Outflows – Replacement of a Winch
Machine with a Jet Dyeing Machine

Savings Savings Savings Savings Savings Savings Savings Savings Savings Savings
(54600) (54600) (54600) (54600) (54600) (54600) (54600) (54600) (54600) (54600)

Capital Operating Operating Operating Operating Operating Operating Operating Operating Operating
Cost Costs + Costs + Costs + Costs + Costs + Costs + Costs + Costs + Costs +
(110040) Depr. Depr. Depr. Depr. Depr. Depr. Depr. Depr. Depr.
(23520) (23520) (23520) (23520) (23520) (23520) (23520) (23520) (23520)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Years

Simple Payback = 36 months, NPV = US$ 9141, IRR = 25.5%

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 Implementation of Options and Sustaining CPAs

• Implement feasible cleaner production measures

• Draw up and adopt a Cleaner Production

(Implementation) Plan; prioritize options depending on
the resources available, prepare technical specifications,
allocate responsibilities, set up monitoring and review
functions

• Monitor the cleaner production implementation plan

• Sustain Cleaner Production; adopt CPAs as an on-

going activity by integrating cleaner production into the
enterprise’s management system
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