Cost and time

Eddy-current non-destructive evaluation is widely used in the aerospace and nuclear power industries for the detection and characterisation of defects in metal components. The ability to predict the probe response to various types of defect is highly valuable since it enables the influence of particular parameters to be studied without recourse to costly and time consuming experiments. The solution of forward problems is also essential in the process of inverting experimental data. 

The examples discussed in tliis chapter show a strong synergy between fundamental physical chemistry and device processing metliods. This is expected only to become richer as shrinking dimensions place ever more stringent demands on process reliability. Selecting key aspects of processes for fundamental study in simpler environments will not only enable finer control over processes, but also enable more sophisticated simulations tliat will reduce tire cost and time required for process optimization. 

An important part of planning an experimental program is the identification of the variables that affect the response and deciding what to do about them. The decision as to how to deal with each of the candidate variables can be made jointiy by the experimenter and the statistician. However, identifying the variables is the experimenter s responsibiUty. Controllable or independent variables in a statistical experiment can be dealt with in four different ways. The assignment of a particular variable to a category often involves a trade-off among information, cost, and time. 

For control purposes it is advisable to estimate startup cost and time beforehand and then try to stay within the estimates. Tne general parameters which can be used to estimate startup cost Csu, which are usually between 2 and 20 percent of the batteiy-limit fixed-capital cost, are as follows ... 

In earlier years, to reach a remote area, where. separate telephone lines had not been laid it was normal practice to rttn them through the same poles as the HT power distribution lines (generally 11-33 kV). This was particularly true of internal communications of the electricity companies for ease of operation and to save costs and time. This commitnication was known as the magneto-telephone system. But the proximity of telephone lines to power lines adversely affected the performance of the telephone lines due to generation of overvoltages (Chapter 20) and eleetrical interferences (conductive and inductive interferences, discussed later) on the telephone lines by the power lines.. Some of these interferenees, particularly system harmonics, had the same frequency as the audio frequency of the telephone lines and alTected their audio quality. 

Collecting a sample is a costly and timecosts minimized consistent with other objectives. It makes little sense to spend 5000 on an extensive stack testing analysis to decide whether to purchase a 10,000 scrubber of 95% efficiency or to try to get by with a 7000 scrubber of 90% efficiency. 

Once the bids are tabulated for specification compliance in the form of a chart for easy review by all others involved in the project, an overall evaluation should be made, factoring in energy cost, first cost, and time value of money using an established economic equation. Most companies have a standardized formula. If the data are available, total cost of ownership can be estimated, which for larger equipment is considered a good measure for evaluation. 

Thus, bench or pilot studies are necessary to avoid technology misapplication in the field. The loss of time in treatment or the requirement to provide additional treatment for the waste is very expensive. Therefore, the relatively small costs and time needed for these studies make them useful tools in treatment selection. Bench-scale treatability studies for demonstrated technologies can cost between 10,000- 50,000 and take up to 6 weeks. Demonstrated technologies are those for which the major design parameters and treatment efficiencies are well understood. Innovative (and some biological processes) will require substantially more time (4-16 weeks) and money ( 25,000-> 200,000). These are estimates, and actual time and costs are going to depend on what kind of technology is under consideration. 

To determine the effects on performance, costs, and time-scales... 

Minimal cost and time commitment Effective transfer of skills and knowledge... 

Infringement of a patent occurs when an individual or company makes, uses, or sells an invention without the permission of the inventor, assignee, owner, or licensee. The U.S. courts will award damages and place penalties on the infringer. But patent infringement cases are very costly and time consuming. 

Expertise required to operate One of the objectives for using microprocessor-based predictive maintenance systems is to reduce the expertise required to acquire error-free, useful vibration and process data from a large population of machinery and systems within a plant. The system should not require user input to establish maximum amplitude, measurement bandwidths, filter settings, or allow free-form data input. All of these functions force the user to be a trained analyst and will increase both the cost and time required to routinely acquire data from plant equipment. Many of the microprocessors on the market provide easy, menu-driven measurement routes that lead the user through the process of acquiring accurate data. The ideal system should require a single key input to automatically acquire, analyze, alarm and store all pertinent data from plant equipment. This type of system would enable an unskilled user to quickly and accurately acquire all of the data required for predictive maintenance. 

A work breakdown structure is the starting place for planning all three parameters of a project quality, cost, and time. It is a technique based on dividing a project into tasks, or work packages. Because all elements required to... 

There is much current interest aimed at the implementation of processes that integrate the upstream and downstream operation for protein recovery.131419 Although adsorption in fluidised beds provides a considerable saving in cost and time over conventional purification techniques, it still deploys a discrete operation with which the desired protein is captured at termination of fermentation or once a cell suspension has been disrupted. The main... 

Since it is a conceptual study employing a theoretical reactor model, it is also important to appreciate the limits of this type of investigation. The advantage of the computer investigation over a pilot or production reactor investigation is the obvious cost and time saving over the real reactor experiment. 

Computer simulations therefore have several inter-related objectives. In the long term one would hope that molecular level simulations of structure and bonding in liquid crystal systems would become sufficiently predictive so as to remove the need for costly and time-consuming synthesis of many compounds in order to optimise certain properties. In this way, predictive simulations would become a routine tool in the design of new materials. Predictive, in this sense, refers to calculations without reference to experimental results. Such calculations are said to be from first principles or ab initio. As a step toward this goal, simulations of properties at the molecular level can be used to parametrise interaction potentials for use in the study of phase behaviour and condensed phase properties such as elastic constants, viscosities, molecular diffusion and reorientational motion with maximum specificity to real systems. Another role of ab initio computer simulation lies in its interaction... 

The new major challenge that the pharmaceutical industry is facing in the discovery and development of new drugs is to reduce costs and time needed from discovery to market, while at the same time raising standards of quality. If the pharmaceutical industry cannot find a solution to reduce both costs and time, then its whole business model will be jeopardized The market will hardly be able, even in the near future, to afford excessively expensive drugs, regardless of their quality. 

The second improvement comes from the potential that computers have, in conjunction with newer processes, to dramatically reduce the cost and time required to monitor data. Most of monitoring involves comparing a source document, defined as the first place a piece of data was recorded, with what was written. Because data are often recorded by first entry in a patient record,... 

Resident Time Distribution (RTD) is widely employed in the chemical engineering industry, as an analytical tool for characterizing flow dynamics within reactor vessels. RTD provides a quantitative measure of the back-mixing with in a reactor system [2]. However the cost and time involved in building and operating a pilot- or full scale reactor for RTD analysis can be economically prohibitive. As such we have implemented a numerical RTD technique through the FLUENT (ver. 6.1) commercial CFD package. 

Finally, external numbering-up may be chosen for simple, practical reasons, if the degree of parallelism does involve only low numbers, e.g. not exceeding 10 devices. Developing an internally numbered-up device will demand development costs and time and, therefore, may be inefficient at a low degree of parallelism. Meanwhile, since micro reactors are available commercially and tentatively will become cheaper, the rapid availability of a small series of devices is no longer impossible. 

Cost - the most reliable LCA tools rely heavily on human expertise. This means that the cost of an assessment can be very high. It is usually necessary to trade off confidence in the assessment method against cost and time to deliver. 

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