Page 36 - Solid Waste Analysis and Minimization a Systems Approach

14 DEFINITION OF SOLID WASTE ANALYSIS AND MINIMIZATION

OUTPUTS
INPUTS SYSTEM
• Desired
• Land • Value-added processes product or
• Capital • Non–valued-added service
• Labor processes • Waste or
by-products
Figure 1.2 The systems approach overview.

The starting point of any system is to clearly define its goal or purpose. Once the goal
is defined, the required inputs, outputs, and process designs can be determined con-
currently, focusing on the system goals. For example, suppose an organization sets a goal
to manufacture 30,000 television sets per year at a rate of return of 14 percent. Now the
system can be defined in terms of processes, inputs, and outputs. The inputs, also known
as the factors of production, are land, capital, and labor:

■ Land or natural resources––naturally occurring goods such as water, air, soil, min-
erals used in the creation of products.
■ Labor––human effort used in production, which also includes technical and marketing
expertise.
■ Capital––human-made goods (or means of production) that are used in the produc-
tion of other goods. These include machinery, tools, and buildings.

From the television-manufacturing example, the inputs would include the raw mate-
rials, such as the electronics, plastics, and metals. Considering these raw materials, the
processes would be designed concurrently. Attention would be given to value added and
non–value added activities. The process design will answer the following questions:

■ What is to be produced?
■ How are the products to be produced?
■ When are the products to be produced?
■ How much of each product will be produced?
■ For how long will the products be produced?
■ Where are the products to be produced?

The answers to these questions are obtained from product, process, and schedule
design and are not independently and sequentially determined, but developed concur-
rently. A clear vision is critical and the success of a firm is dependent on having an effi-
cient production system. The product design phase defines which products will be
produced and provides detailed drawings of the part. A quality deployment function
(QDF) is generally applied to accomplish this. A QDF is an organized approach to
identify customer needs and translate the needs to product characteristics, process
design, and the tolerances required. Following is an exploded part drawing that identifies
the raw material and components that make up an assembly or final product (Fig. 1.3).
The process design phase examines the following issues: