Page 440 - Design of Simple and Robust Process Plants

10.3 The Design of High-quality Plants 427
. The environmental risks need to be determined for emergency situations,
and provisions such as emergency ponds need to be addressed. In case dan-
gerous goods need to be transported, transportation risk studies with differ-
ent modes of transportation and routes might be a requirement.
. All environmental issues are critical for the public, and demand an open,
honest, and timely communication. A communication plan for environmen-
tal issues needs to be available in the operational phase.

Remarks Sustainability is demanding for more attention. The requirements regar-
ding the efficiency of the process and requirement for Life Cycle Analysis (LCAs)
are growing. The LCAs are mostly carried out for product chains, and in general are
(in most organizations) a business responsibility. The demand for efficient proces-
ses will have to be addressed during the technology selection.
Shortage of water is not seen as a generic environmental issue, but might be a
specific local problem. In the last case it has to be addressed in the environmental
report.
For an example, see the 10 steps environmental procedure and reviews of Kraft
(1992).

Timing/documentation: during all project phases and documented in environmental
reports.

10.3.2.3 Process simplification
A structured brainstorming session should be conducted to achieve capital and
operational savings of the facility. The application of such an approach in process
design is quite recent, and fits in the realization of World Class Manufacturing
(WCM) (Schonberger, 1986) and Simple and Robust plant designs (Koolen, 1998).
The focus is on the process itself, its units and its equipment. This in contradiction
to value engineering that is based on the same technique, but generally speaking
concentrates more on equipment and its details. For detailed information on value
engineering techniques, which are similar for simplification, contact SAVE Interna-
tional (see Reference list for details).
The brainstorming sessions should capture the following elements:

. Information collection; for a facility we need a project scope, index flowsheet,
process description, mass and energy balances and any logistic require-
ments.
. A team with a independent moderator and qualified team members from
R&D, process engineering, process control, design engineering, production,
project team, business and licenser representatives.
. Creation of ideas is the crucial step. This is done with a technique called
function analysis (see Appendix 10.2) (Snodgrass and Kasi, 1986; SAVE Inter-
national). The opportunity is to create ideas about project alternatives, and
that requires an out-of-the-box thinking environment.