37978-1-5090-2927-3/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
Applying the Principles of Social Manufacturing
to Chemical Process-related Value Chains
Jürgen Poesche and Ilkka Kauranen
Aalto University, Industrial Engineering and Management,
Helsinki, Finland
Abstract- The principles of Social Manufacturing are
revolutionizing manufacturing value chains that produce discrete
products. Moreover, Social Manufacturing holds the promise of
revolutionizing chemical process-related value chains. Social
Manufacturing in Chemical Engineering is not a straightforward
adoption of the principles of Social Manufacturing that were
originally developed in the context of discrete products. These
fundamental principles include customer involvement in all parts of
the value chain, decentralized production, individualized products
and small-scale production, all enabled by powerful modern
information technologies. Chemical process-related value chains
include both batch processes and continuous processes. The
adaptation of Social Manufacturing principles varies depending on
which of the two types of chemical processes is in question. With
the help of two examples, the potential and limitations of Social
Manufacturing in chemical engineering are explored. The first
example addresses batch processes. Microbreweries, which allow
Social Manufacturing in the food and beverage industry, are
proving a serious competitor to large-scale industrial
operations. With the help of the microbreweries example, the
potential of Social Manufacturing in the food and beverage
industry is explored. The second example addresses Social
Manufacturing in crop science. Climate change will cause rapid
changes in local ecosystems, and the need to produce sufficient
amounts of food will require that crop plants adapt to these rapidly
changing local ecosystems. To facilitate this adaptation,
engineering based on Biochemistry is needed. Social
Manufacturing offers a powerful way to mobilize the expertise of
farmers and scientists to create crop plants that are suitable for
each stage of the rapid change of local ecosystems. The two
examples are used to adapt the principles of Social Manufacturing
to the chemical engineering environment.
1
Keywords—
Social Manufacturing;
Chemical Process
;
Value Chain
I.
I
NTRODUCTION
Chemistry, chemical engineering and chemical unit
operations are ubiquitous. Their ranges of scale, sophistication
and complexity are vast. They include some of the largest
This work was supported by the Tekes FiDiPro Social Manufacturing
project 211560.
industrial facilities in human history, producing, for example,
petrochemical products or base chemicals. They are even
represented in small-scale household activities, such as cooking
a meal. Their pervasiveness in the economy raises the
questions of whether and, if it is possible, how the principles of
Social Manufacturing can be applied to value chains featuring
operations that can be divided into two broad process-type
categories: batch production processes and continuous
production processes; see Austin (1986). There are numerous
different types of chemical processes featuring characteristics
of batch and/or continuous production processes; see Peters et
al. (2003). The exploration of the application of the principles
of Social Manufacturing would be more straightforward if the
production lines considered consisted of either batch
production processes or continuous production processes. In
reality, many production lines feature both batch production
processes and continuous production processes, and some
reactors exhibit characteristics of both. For reasons of
simplicity, only clear batch production processes and clear
continuous production processes will be considered in this
paper. From the standpoint of applying the principles of Social
Manufacturing to chemical processes, the potential for product
individualization is different for batch production processes
and continuous production processes.
Irrespective of category, it is necessary to keep in mind
the intrinsic limitations of the use of equipment in chemical
processes. Two important limitations are (i) the materials with
which the equipment has been manufactured to avoid industrial
incidents that could be a result of, for example, corrosion and
(ii) hygienic requirements in the production of, for example,
beverages, food and pharmaceuticals. When the principles of
Social Manufacturing are applied, it is necessary to consider
not only whether the chemical unit operations and equipment
are able to produce the desired product but also whether the
production harms the chemical unit operations or equipment.
The objective of this paper is to present how the principles
of Social Manufacturing, which were originally developed for
manufacturing value chains producing discrete products, have
to be adapted when they are applied to chemical process-
related value chains.
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