Technical accounting: sugar extraction and losses

2020 ◽  
pp. 712-721
Author(s):  
Jan Maarten de Bruijn de Bruijn

The bought sugar in the processed raw material (either beet or cane) comprises a high financial value and may contribute to somewhere around 50% of the white sugar production costs. It is therefore of the utmost importance to minimize sugar losses along the process and produce as much white sugar as possible from the raw material. This paper explains the principle of technical accounting as tool to control sugar extraction and losses in beet sugar manufacture. The sugar mass balance used to calculate the overall sugar extraction yield, as well as several simple calculations proposed for estimating the different sugar losses (like e.g. extraction (diffusion) losses, infection losses, sugar losses in molasses, etc.) in the subsequent process steps will be explained in detail. Proper technical accounting is considered indispensable for continuous process control and process improvement in pursuit of best-practice operation and cost-leadership.

2019 ◽  
pp. 444-450
Author(s):  
Samuel Balieiro ◽  
Thomas de Witte ◽  
Andreas Lehnberger

With the liberalization of the European sugar sector, the industry is free to export sugar to the world market, competing with other sugarcane producing countries. To understand competitiveness, it is imperative to compare total production costs, including both raw material (farm) and processing costs (mill). Therefore, farmlevel production costs from agri benchmark combined with an engineering approach to calculate processing costs were merged to calculate sugar production costs in Germany and Brazil. The necessary data related to investment costs and technical coefficients was obtained in collaboration with BMA. Results show that processing one ton of white sugar (excluding raw material costs) from sugarcane in Brazil is more than USD30/t cheaper than processing sugar beet in Germany. Including raw material costs and the sales of byproducts, white sugar production in Brazil has a total cost advantage of USD112/t over German factories. Key differences in production costs are associated with labor (20%), depreciation (20%) and energy costs (40%). The findings indicate that even with equivalent raw material costs, the lower net processing costs are a major competitive advantage for Brazilian sugar producers. The combination of the typical farm approach and the dynamic engineering model can be applied to other regions, allowing for the estimation of regional production and shifts in global sugar supply.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-73
Author(s):  
Kukhan S ◽  
Bhuvanesh Kumar M

Lean manufacturing (LM) is established as a best practice to improve the performance of manufacturing industries. Not all the manufacturing industries realize the benefits of LM practices specifically continuous process industries. The present research work is intended to study the advantages of implementing LM practices in an ethical paper industry which is a continuous production industry. Presently, the industry suffers with the problems such as lack of productivity, raw material wastes, underutilized resources, and lack of standard practices in the production. Gemba technique is adapted to record the information related to the present manufacturing environment. Based on the current state analysis, the feasible lean tools are selected and implemented such as 5S, Kaizen, and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). The improvements have been noted as reduced tool change over time, reduced material wastes, effective utilization of resources and provide safety guidelines to workers and operations. The implications of these improvements increased the productivity also.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 22-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Alberto García-Bustamante ◽  
Noé Aguilar-Rivera ◽  
Manuel Zepeda-Pirrón ◽  
Cynthia Armendáriz-Arnez

AbstractSustainable development has been highlighted widely in productive sectors such as the sugar industry with new paradigms and trends such restructuring of sugar mills in biorefineries and development of green chemical from byproducts, considering issues such as technology adoption towards sustainability, circular economy, climate change, value chain, sustainability assessment and decision making. Production of cane sugar is one of Mexico’s main agro-industries; it conveys numerous positive socio-economic impacts and presents opportunities for productive diversification and enhanced profitability and competiveness. The sugar industry faces sustainability challenges due to the management of natural resources like soil, water, fossil fuels and agrochemicals, as well as the impacts of its greenhouse gas emissions and socio-economic constraints. However, sustainability of cane and sugar production cannot be assessed due to a lack of methodological frameworks for integrating economic and environmental indicators. We propose an index for Mexico’s sugar agro-industry that facilitates the identification of those system components that impact sustainability. This index is based on a reduced number of indicators aggregated through a multi-criteria evaluation using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). We apply this index to evaluate four sugar production systems in Mexico: producers of raw, refined, muscovado sugar and ethanol. Results show that systems with a high agro-industrial yield present better sustainability performance. This study is relevant because it provides quantitative information for decision makers towards a sustainable sugarcane agro-industry, based on the indicators used to build the sustainability index, to address actions as increase productive diversification by-products based, improve access to credit, irrigation, management practices and raw material quality reducing production costs, eliminate fossil fuel use in factories, make fertilizer application more efficient and reduce the area that is burned for manual harvest.


Author(s):  
Sadaf Zahoor ◽  
Walid Abdul-Kader ◽  
Hamza Ijaz ◽  
Atif Khan ◽  
Zeeshan Saeed ◽  
...  

The issues related to setup downtime, raw material waste, and the quality defects are inevitable in the flexographic printing business. To enable sustainable continuous process improvements within the printing process, lean manufacturing methodologies, such as Value Stream Mapping, (VSM), can be a competitive management approach. Therefore, this study explores how the systematic application of VSM in a flexographic printing process can foster further the process improvement when combined with other lean activities, such as, 5S, single minute exchange of die (SMED), and kaizen etc. To assess the contribution of this lean approach, the Overall Equipment Effectiveness, (OEE), and manufacturing costs are taken as performance metrics. The results demonstrate that when integrated with 5-why root cause analysis and kaizen, VSM improved OEE by 24.31% and reduced manufacturing costs from US$0.762 million to US$0.6 million. Hence, the significance of the proposed combined lean approach for continuous improvement is reached.


2009 ◽  
Vol 160 (7) ◽  
pp. 195-200
Author(s):  
Reto Hefti

In the mountainous canton Grisons, much visited by tourists, the forest has always had an important role to play. New challenges are now presenting themselves. The article goes more closely into two themes on the Grisons forestry agenda dominating in the next few years: the increased use of timber and climate change. With the increased demand for logs and the new sawmill in Domat/Ems new opportunities are offered to the canton for more intensive use of the raw material, wood. This depends on a reduction in production costs and a positive attitude of the population towards the greater use of wood. A series of measures from the Grisons Forestry Department should be of help here. The risk of damage to infrastructure is particularly high in a mountainous canton. The cantonal government of the Grisons has commissioned the Forestry Department to define the situation concerning the possible consequences of global warming on natural hazards and to propose measures which may be taken. The setting up of extensive measurement and information systems, the elaboration of intervention maps, the estimation of the danger potential in exposed areas outside the building zone and the maintenance of existing protective constructions through the creation of a protective constructions register, all form part of the government programme for 2009 to 2012. In the Grisons, forest owners and visitors will have to become accustomed to the fact that their forests must again produce more wood and that, on account of global warming, protective forests will become even more important than they already are today.


Author(s):  
SAFITRI NURHIDAYATI ◽  
RIZKI AMELYA SYAM

This study aims to analyze whether the difference that occurs in the cost of raw materials, direct labor, and factory overhead costs between the standard costs and the actual costs in PLTU LATI is a difference that is favorable or unfavorable. Data collection techniques with field research and library research. The analytical tool used is the analysis of the difference in raw material costs, the difference in direct labor costs and the difference in factory overhead costs. The hypothesis in this study is that the difference allegedly occurs in the cost of raw materials, direct labor costs, and factory overhead costs at PT Indo Pusaka Berau Tanjung Redeb is a favorable difference. The results showed that the difference in the cost of producing MWh electricity at PT Indo Pusaka Berau Tanjung Redeb in 2018, namely the difference in the price of raw material costs Rp. 548,029.80, - is favorable, the difference in quantity of raw materials is Rp. 957,216,602, - is (favorable) , the difference in direct labor costs Rp 2,602,642,084, - is (unfavorable), and the difference in factory overhead costs Rp 8,807,051,422, - is (favorable) This shows that the difference in the overall production cost budget is favorable or profitable. This beneficial difference shows that the company is really able to reduce production costs optimally in 2018.  


Author(s):  
Pramila Kalaga ◽  
Barbara Wolford ◽  
Matthew Mormino ◽  
Timothy Kingston ◽  
Julie Fedderson ◽  
...  

The risk of a needle stick or sharps injury in the operating room (OR) is high due to conditions such as minimal physical protective measures, frequent transfer of sharps, and reliance on human attention and skill for injury avoidance. An ergonomic process improvement project was initiated at a large metro teaching hospital to identify ergonomic risk factors for these OR injuries. To maximize the engagement of the front- end users, an ergonomic process improvement (EPI) team was developed, consisting of representatives from participating OR teams, an employee health nurse and two ergonomists. Surveys, observations, and interviews were conducted to quantify injury risk for the OR teams, evaluate barriers to best practice adherence, and identify opportunities for targeted interventions. Risk mapping was completed for the surgeons, surgical techs and OR nurses identifying double gloving and safe passing zone as areas in need of improvement. Through observation and interviews, researchers identified physical factors relating to musculoskeletal pain and cognitive factors leading to distractions as safety risk concerns. The overall success of the EPI was the engagement of the OR teams and surgeons in the process of identifying risk factors and potential opportunities for ergonomic solutions related to cognitive workload, physical workload, teamwork, and work design for injury prevention. The risk factors identified will provide the basis for developing targeted, effective interventions for eliminating injuries from needles and sharps within the OR.


Cellulose ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aayush Kumar Jaiswal ◽  
Vinay Kumar ◽  
Alexey Khakalo ◽  
Panu Lahtinen ◽  
Katariina Solin ◽  
...  

AbstractHigh-consistency processing of fibrillated cellulose materials is attractive for commercial applications due to potential for lowered production costs, energy savings and easier logistics. The current work investigated structure–property relationships of fibrillated cellulose suspensions produced at 20% consistency using VTT HefCel (High-consistency enzymatic fibrillation of cellulose) technology. Morphological examination of the fibrillated materials revealed that enzymatic action on the cellulose substrates was not a direct function of enzyme dosage but rather was dependent on the raw material composition. Furthermore, shear viscosity of the HefCel suspensions was found to decrease with increasing enzyme dosage while the water retention increased. The shear viscosity followed power law relationship with the power law index varying in the range 0.11–0.73. The shear-thinning behavior decreased with increasing consistency. Moreover, suspension viscosity ($$\upmu$$ μ ) was found to be highly dependent on the consistency ($$\mathrm{c})$$ c ) as $$\upmu \sim {\mathrm{c}}^{\mathrm{m}}$$ μ ∼ c m , with $$\mathrm{m}$$ m ranging from 2.75 to 4.31 for different samples. Yield stress (τy) of the HefCel suspensions was measured at 7 and 10% consistencies. The performance of the fibrillated cellulose grades in a typical application was demonstrated by casting films, which were characterized for their mechanical properties. Graphic abstract


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Tamás Mizik ◽  
Gábor Gyarmati

As Earth’s fossil energy resources are limited, there is a growing need for renewable resources such as biodiesel. That is the reason why the social, economic and environmental impacts of biofuels became an important research topic in the last decade. Depleted stocks of crude oil and the significant level of environmental pollution encourage researchers and professionals to seek and find solutions. The study aims to analyze the economic and sustainability issues of biodiesel production by a systematic literature review. During this process, 53 relevant studies were analyzed out of 13,069 identified articles. Every study agrees that there are several concerns about the first-generation technology; however, further generations cannot be price-competitive at this moment due to the immature technology and high production costs. However, there are promising alternatives, such as wastewater-based microalgae with up to 70% oil content, fat, oils and grease (FOG), when production cost is below 799 USD/gallon, and municipal solid waste-volatile fatty acids technology, where the raw material is free. Proper management of the co-products (mainly glycerol) is essential, especially at the currently low petroleum prices (0.29 USD/L), which can only be handled by the biorefineries. Sustainability is sometimes translated as cost efficiency, but the complex interpretation is becoming more common. Common elements of sustainability are environmental and social, as well as economic, issues.


2013 ◽  
Vol 791-793 ◽  
pp. 550-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dong Dong Han ◽  
Cheng Jun Wang ◽  
Juan Chang ◽  
Lei Chen ◽  
Huai Bei Xie

At present, pulley produced in China has been able to meet the demand of domestic and international markets. But there are many problem of the pulley industry in our country, such as too many production enterprises and the low level of export products. And as components of drive system are light weight and raw material price of pulley casting are rising, manufacturing requirements of the pulley are also more and more high. Aiming at the casting defects of pulley that enterprise current product, pulley casting blank model of common material HT250 be made by three-dimension software, numerical simulation of filling and solidification process for pulley sand casting by the casting simulation software Procast, the size and location of the various casting defects were forecasted and analyzed, reflecting the pulley filling and solidification process of the actual situation, due to the thicker pulley rim and less heat dissipation, position of shrinkage is close to the middle of rim [, a method of eliminating defects is proposed to realize sequential solidification, and thus to minimize porosity shrinkage and improve casting performance and reduce casting time and reduce production costs.


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