Business values practice management

The applications described in this second part of the chapter are intended to illustrate the wide range of uses for NIR in the chemical industry. The selection of examples was intentionally limited to work done within industry and published in the open literature in order to keep the focus on work that has demonstrated business value. However, it has been the authors experience that for every industrial NIR application published in the open literature there are at least two others practiced as trade secrets for business reasons. This is especially true for on-hne applications that have progressed beyond the feasibility stage, since the NIR results can reveal a great deal of information about the chemical process itself - information which industry managers are often reluctant to share. Pubhshed industrial applications should therefore be considered merely the tip of the iceberg. 

Before investing the time and resources required to adopt proactive and more responsible practices, corporate managers often want to know the business case -how such changes will increase shareholder value. To some managers the business case is intuitive, for others it is thought to rely more on the vagaries of intangible factors and is therefore elusive. 

The most obvious signs of this embrace of sustainability are the systems, business processes and programs that companies institute and support. For this superstructure to function successfully, however, it must be firmly rooted in core values and principles of business conduct that have been articulated by management and are lived by all employees. We have seen too many examples of corporate failures in the recent past where the systems and processes were in place, but values and ethical business practices were lacking. Values and business conduct are the foundation for sustainability and long-term business success. 

On the other hand, the supply chain is also operational, because the end-to-end supply chain concept has to work in practice, and this is all about getting supply chain thinking and skill-sets into every level of management and supervision, and into execution in every business function, in every player in the value chain. The drive for change needs to come from the top senior management, and the leadership of change to convert supply chain thinking into operational practice, must be taken up as a boardroom responsibility. 

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