Lifecycle considerations

Referring back to the discussion in Section 8.2 on lifecycle considerations, we remarked on the difficulty of confirming maintenance cost and reliability claims made by equipment suppliers. We concluded that it was often preferable to specify features which were known to offer enhanced performance in these respects rather than rely on competitive bidding to produce an optimal design. 

The demand planning module is used for short-term and midterm sales planning. It covers basic statistical forecasting methods, but is also capable of taking additional aspects into account. For example, these may be promotions in shortterm sales planning or the consideration of product lifecycles in midterm sales planning. 

It is important that personnel understand how to achieve safe operation, but not at the exclusion of other important considerations, such as reliability, operability, and maintainability. The chemical industry has also found significant benefit to plant productivity and operability when SIS work processes are used to design and manage other instrumented protective systems (IPS), such as those mitigating potential economic and business losses. The CCPS book (2007) Guidelines for Safe and Reliable Instrumented Protective Systems discusses the activities and quality control measures necessary to achieve safe and reliable operation throughout the IPS lifecycle. 

Incorporating sustainability into design requires a more systemic view (see Section 5.3.2 for detailed descriptions on systems thinking) beyond the boundaries of a chemical facility. This often includes the consideration of a product s lifecycle as well as the needs of a broader set of stakeholders, such as ... 

Lifecycle design Similar to DfE, emphasizing the integration of lifecycle and environmental impact consideration at each stage of product development cycle. Keoleian and Menerey, 1993... 

Economy. The economic data are compiled over the entire lifecycle. For this purpose the material and energy flows, including all relevant incidental flows, are taken into consideration. The total costs are normalized with respect to the average of all alternatives. This helps in identifying cost drivers and areas offering potential for cost reductions. 

The value of backup power is as much as three to four times the value of primary power on a kilowatt basis. For example, the lifecycle cost of the backup power systems found at the base of a cell tower, which now consists of a bank of lead acid batteries and a diesel or natural gas fired combustion engine, is between 3000 and 4000 per kW. Critical power facilities for data processing centers and the like are also in this cost range. The simple fact is that customers need electricity and will pay a considerable insurance premium to obtain assurance of uninterruptible power. In the case of cellular phone service providers, their federal FCC license may be at risk if they are unable to demonstrate adequate operating capability in the event of grid outages. 

The diversity of environmentally related considerations raised in this chapter illustrates the complexity of evaluating the overall environmental impact of packaging alternatives. There is general consensus that when evaluating the environmental effects of a product or process, it is essential to consider the whole life cycle. Evaluations that are narrowly focused around a particular operation can lead to erroneous decisions if the impacts of the decision extend outside the boundary used, which is often the case. This is the motivation behind the developing technology of lifecycle assessment. 

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