Design for Purchasing: A Methodology for Reducing the Materials Cost of Engineered Products

Author(s):  
Stephen Bradley ◽  
Matthias Calice ◽  
Marc Fischer ◽  
Michael Harmening

Abstract This paper gives an overview of a methodology for reducing the cost of purchased materials for engineered products. The methodology has been successfully employed for a wide range of applications, ranging from low value-added products, such as simple processed materials (e.g., steel sheet or profiles), to high value-added equipment, such as machine tools and major components of industrial plants. We have applied the methodology in some 80 projects, achieving cost savings averaging 17% on top of the 10% savings achieved using traditional purchasing optimization approaches. The key distinguishing features of the methodology are a product-oriented as opposed to materials group-driven approach, the establishment of interdisciplinary teams that include engineers and purchasing professionals, and a well-defined, systematic method for addressing the most important drivers of materials cost together with key suppliers. The methodology is introduced by performing pilot projects, then anchored in the enterprise through organizational and procedural changes.

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 1681-1684
Author(s):  
Georgi Toskov ◽  
Ana Yaneva ◽  
Stanko Stankov ◽  
Hafize Fidan

The European Commission defines the bioeconomy as "the production of renewable biological resources and the conversion of these resources and waste streams into value added products, such as food, feed, bio-based products and bioenergy. Its sectors and industries have strong innovation potential due to their use of a wide range of sciences, enabling and industrial technologies, along with local and implied knowledge." The Bulgarian food industry faces a lot of challenges on the local and national level, which have direct influence on the structure of the production companies. Most of the enterprises from the food sector produce under foreign brands in order to be flexible partners to the large Bulgarian retail chains. The small companies from the food sector are not able to develop as an independent competitive producer on the territory of their local markets. This kind of companies rarely has a working strategy for positioning on new markets. In order to consolidate their already built positions for long period of time, the producers are trying to optimize their operations in a short term. However, the unclear vision of the companies for the business segment does not allow them to fully develop. Tourism in Bulgaria is a significant contributor to the country's economy.


Membranes ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 82
Author(s):  
Roy Nitzsche ◽  
Hendrik Etzold ◽  
Marlen Verges ◽  
Arne Gröngröft ◽  
Matthias Kraume

Hemicellulose and its derivatives have a high potential to replace fossil-based materials in various high-value-added products. Within this study, two purification cascades for the separation and valorization of hemicellulose and its derived monomeric sugars from organosolv beechwood hydrolyzates (BWHs) were experimentally demonstrated and assessed. Purification cascade 1 included hydrothermal treatment for converting remaining hemicellulose oligomers to xylose and the purification of the xylose by nanofiltration. Purification cascade 2 included the removal of lignin by adsorption, followed by ultrafiltration for the separation and concentration of hemicellulose. Based on the findings of the experimental work, both cascades were simulated on an industrial scale using Aspen Plus®. In purification cascade 1, 63% of the oligomeric hemicellulose was hydrothermally converted to xylose and purified by nanofiltration to 7.8 t/h of a xylose solution with a concentration of 200 g/L. In purification cascade 2, 80% of the lignin was removed by adsorption, and 7.6 t/h of a purified hemicellulose solution with a concentration of 200 g/L was obtained using ultrafiltration. The energy efficiency of the cascades was 59% and 26%, respectively. Furthermore, the estimation of specific production costs showed that xylose can be recovered from BWH at the cost of 73.7 EUR/t and hemicellulose at 135.1 EUR/t.


2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (suppl_1) ◽  
pp. e8-e8
Author(s):  
Catherine Rich ◽  
Alexander Sasha Dubrovsky

Abstract BACKGROUND In 2016, a Canadian paediatric emergency department (ED) partnered with families in the co-design of a LEAN-based quality improvement (QI) project with the goal of increasing the proportion of asthmatic children receiving oral corticosteroids within one hour of arrival. LEAN projects aim to eliminate non-value-added process steps and to creatively solve problems as a team. Implemented changes included a process redesign with steroids given at the door and a revised asthma pathway increasing nurse autonomy prior to physician assessment. A sustained improvement (>12 months) was achieved, with asthmatic children consistently (>90%) receiving timely steroids within a mean time of 20 minutes. OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to determine the cost savings of the improvements achieved by eliminating non-value-added process steps executed by physicians and nurses. The primary outcome measure was the number of documented care acts by physicians and nurses. DESIGN/METHODS Cases were identified by using the diagnostic code for asthma in the electronic medical record. This study included children 1 to 18 with Pediatric Respiratory Assessment Measure (PRAM) score ≥ 4 at triage. Patients who required admission were excluded. We reviewed a random sample of 20 to 30 charts monthly for 12 months, 6 months pre- and post-implementation of the revised asthma pathway. Physicians are remunerated on a fee-for-service basis and we modeled cost-savings of physician remunerations based on publically available physician fees. We assessed the number of documented nursing acts as a proxy for resource allocation in the ED given that the pathway increased nursing autonomy prior to physician assessment. RESULTS A total of 270 patients were included. With a simple process redesign aimed at getting children timely steroids at triage, the number of physician assessments decreased by 18%. In terms of physician billing, the cost savings were $24 per asthmatic patient in the ED. With >3000 asthma ED visits annually, the resulting estimated cost savings were >$72,000 per year. Even though increased nursing autonomy was part of the new process, documented nursing acts decreased by 10%. Moreover, although not included in the cost savings analysis, ED length of stay and admission rates both decreased. CONCLUSION Engaging frontline healthcare teams to co-design improvement initiatives with family partners in the ED is an excellent mechanism for leaders to sponsor. Frontline teams can implement creative and simple solutions that result in improved quality of care while also reducing unnecessary healthcare expenditures.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela Verónica Díaz ◽  
Silvana Soledad Sawostjanik Afanasiuk ◽  
Romina Olga Coniglio ◽  
Juan Ernesto Velázquez ◽  
Pedro Darío Zapata ◽  
...  

Abstract The agricultural industries generate lignocellulosic wastes that can be modified by fungi to generate high value-added products. The aim of this work was to analyze the efficiency of the bioconversion of sugarcane bagasse and cassava bagasse using two cheap home-made enzymatic cocktails from Aspergillus niger LBM 134 (produced also from agroindustrial wastes) and compare the hydrolysis yield with that obtained from the bioconversion using commercial enzymes. Sugarcane bagasse and cassava bagasse were pretreated with a soft alkaline solution before the hydrolysis carried out with home-made enzymatic cocktails of A. niger LBM 134 and with commercial enzymes to compare their performances. Mono and polysaccharides were analyzed before and after the bioconversion of both bagasses as well as their microscopic structure. The maximal yield was the 80% of total glucans saccharified from cassava bagasse. The bioconversion of both bagasses were better when we used the home-made enzymatic cocktails than commercial enzymes. We obtained high added-value products from agroindustrial wastes, home-made enzymatic cocktails and hydrolysates rich in fermentable sugars. The importance of this work lays in the higher performance of the cheap home-made enzymatic cocktails over the hydrolytic performance of commercial enzymes due to the cost of producing the home-made enzymatic cocktails were more than 500 times lower than commercial enzymes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-54
Author(s):  
Ndubuisi Chigozirim Onwusiribe ◽  
Chimarauche Peace Amanze ◽  
Chinwendu Oriaku

This study analyzed the profitability of ginger value addition in Abia State, Nigeria. This study identified the ginger value-added products common in the area, the cost implications of the value addition process, and the socio-economic and farm-specific factors affecting ginger value addition. A stratified random sampling technique was used to select 60 (sixty) respondents and a well-structured questionnaire was used to collect the necessary data. The results revealed that the value ginger products were dried ginger, salted ginger, ginger flakes, ginger oil, and ginger paste. The factors affecting the profitability of ginger value addition from the linear regression model shows that education, income, capital, and collateral were significant. It is, therefore, recommended that youth and entrepreneurs should invest in ginger value addition as it is profitable and it is a sure way to economic empowerment and fight against hunger. 


2022 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 453-458
Author(s):  
Lakhvinder Kaur ◽  
Shachi Shah

Fruits and vegetables have the highest wastage rates of 45% of any food. One of the recent research areas is food waste valorization as a potential alternative to the disposal of a wide range of organic waste using microorganisms as one of the strategies known as microbial valorization. Bacterial cellulose is best known microbial valorization product because of its low cost, environmentally friendly nature, renewability, nanoscale dimensions, biocompatibility and extremely high hydrophilicity. Therefore, present study focuses on the isolation, characterization and identification of cellulose producing bacteria from decaying apple waste. Cellulose producers were isolated from decaying apple waste. The bacterial isolates obtained were identified through the morphological biochemical, physiological and molecular identification. The bacterial isolates exhibited potential remediation options to biovalorize decaying fruit waste by producing value added products as well as in safe disposal of waste.


Author(s):  
Afifa Jahan ◽  
R. Arunjyothi ◽  
A. Shankar ◽  
M. Jagan Mohan Reddy ◽  
T. Prabhakar Reddy ◽  
...  

Millets are known as one of the most important cereal grains as it is good source of phytochemicals and micronutrients. Millets are consumed by more than 1/3rd of the world’s population. It is the 6th cereal crop in terms of world’s agricultural production. Present study was carried out in Nagarkurnool district of southern Telangana zone and sample size is n=30 farm women from economically low background cultivating millets were selected purposively. Nutritional education, skill development programs and awareness camps were organized to encourage for starting value added millet based enterprise for livelihood instead of selling raw produce which fetch low profits. The result of present study has shown that Millet value based products has enhanced the enterprise opportunities as the increase in health consciousness of the people. In the present study the cost benefit ratio has increase gradually with the each year 1:1.46 in the year 2018, 1:1.92 in the year 2019 and 1:2.5 in the year 2020. The consumption frequency of millet based value added products has also increased from 66% of sample daily consumption to 92% of daily consumption. As traditional roties (Indian flat bread) were not accepted by young age and unable to chew and swallow by old age. Millet based value added products were highly accepted, increased the consumption frequency and increased the income of farm women.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 335-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aishwarya Ramkumar ◽  
Nallusamy Sivakumar ◽  
Reginald Victor

Industrial biotechnology processes have recently been exploited for an economic utilization of wastes to produce value added products. Of which, fish waste is one of the rich sources of proteins that can be utilized as low cost substrates for microbial enzyme production. Fish heads, tails, fins, viscera and the chitinous materials make up the wastes from fish industries. Processing these wastes for the production of commercial value added products could result in a decrease in the cost of production. In addition, we can eliminate the pollution of the environment and health issues due to the improper disposal of these fish wastes. This review highlights the potential use of fish waste as a cheaper substrate for the production of economically important protease enzyme.


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