Case studies opportunities

Additionally, the EPA pubhshes a newsletter entitled Pollution Prevention News that contains information including EPA news, technologies, program updates, and case studies. The EPA s Risk Reduction Engineering Laboratoiy and the Center for Environmental Research Information has pubhshed several guidance documents, developed in cooperation with the California Department of Health Services. The manuals supplement generic waste reduction information presented in the EPA s Waste Minimization Opportunity Assessment Manual (Ref. 9). 

The use of CA has proved to be beneficial for companies introducing a new product, when an opportunity exists to use new processes/technologies or when design rules are not widely known. Design conformance problems can be systematically addressed, with potential benefits, including reduced failure costs, shorter product development times and improved supplier dialogue. A number of detailed case studies are used to demonstrate its application at many different levels. 

Pollution Prevention Opportunity Checklists Case Studies, September 1993 832/F-93-006 NSCEP 832/F-93-006 ERIC W543. 

Figure 4.8 Interception and recycle opportunities for the AN case study.

Started. Since pump A and its associated pipework was off-line, the supervisor took the opportunity to carry out scheduled maintenance on the pressure relief valve (PRV) downstream of pump A. The valve had been malfunctioning, and although the work was not scheduled to be done for some weeks, the specialist contractor team who maintain the PRVs had a team available to carry out the work immediately. The supervisor therefore now had two teams working on the pump A systems the shift maintenance team working on the pump itself, and a two-man contractor team working on the PRV and its associated pipework. The PRV for pump A is not located immediately adjacent to the pump, and is above floor level, close to a number of other pipe runs. The following description represents a hypothetical sequence of events based on the inquiry findings, but embellished for the purposes of the case study. 

Literature in the area of neural networks has been expanding at an enormous rate with the development of new and efficient algorithms. Neural networks have been shown to have enormous processing capability and the authors have implemented many hybrid approaches based on this technique. The authors have implemented an ANN based approach in several areas of polymer science, and the overall results obtained have been very encouraging. Case studies and the algorithms presented in this chapter were very simple to implement. With the current expansion rate of new approaches in neural networks, the readers may find other paradigms that may provide new opportunities in their area of interest. 

The Seminars have provided an opportunity to try methods and materials and lay a groundwork for more general instruction. Selected topics treated as case studies include ... 

The paper reviews several ad-hoc approaches to estimating releases and illustrates their use with a case study of benzene. The authors identify key opportunities for further research. 

Table 4.4 is the summary of the mathematical model and the results obtained for the case study. The model for scenario 1 involves 637 constraints, 245 continuous and 42 binary variables. Seventy nodes were explored in the branch and bound algorithm. The model was solved in 1.61 CPU seconds, yielding an objective value (profit) of 1.61 million over the time horizon of interest, i.e. 6 h. This objective is concomitant with the production of 850 t of product and utilization of 210 t of freshwater. Ignoring any possibility for water reuse/recycle, whilst targeting the same product quantity would result in 390 t of freshwater utilization. Therefore, exploitation of water reuse/recycle opportunities results in more than 46% savings in freshwater utilization, in the absence of central reusable water storage. The water network to achieve the target is shown in Fig. 4.14. 

The case studies revealed a lack of overview regarding precursors, their underlying organizational root causes (the latent conditions) and their possible effects on safety barriers. This lack of overview created the opportunity for safety risks in the operational process, despite the presence of many safety indicators and measures. 

In the following sub-Sections the practical approach derived in the previous Chapter will be applied on this case study. Therefore, the precursors present inside the operational process are identified. Then, the control of the operational process will be modelled and analysed to find the ineffective control elements. Furthermore, the latent conditions causing the ineffective control will be retrieved and their impact on the existing safety barriers will be identified. Finally, improvement opportunities for the company will be indicated, together with some recommendations and enhancements for the applied concepts and the proposed practical approach. 

Finally, the model needs to prove its applicability in reality and its performance in an industry case study. The model is evaluated with comprehensive industry case data and the relevance of the end-to-end value chain planning approach is evaluated. Opportunities for model extensions are outlined at the end. 

The announcement of new regulations or initiatives for enforcement. A market opportunity is created for innovative products and services when the users of hazardous substances expect new regulations or the monitoring authorities initiate new checks. The SubChem case studies demonstrated that a clearly perceived initiative is frequently more effective than an attempt at the saturation monitoring of regulations. 

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