Plant costs overview

Once the investment expenditures for plants/production lines are established for a single country, they have to be localized to account for cost differentials between countries. To this end, location adjustment factors can be employed (cf. McMillan and Humphreys 1990). Location factors for chemical industry can for example be obtained from SRI Consulting. A comprehensive overview of commercial sources for cost, inflation and location factors is published in Remer and Mattos (2003). Kohn et al. (1997) discuss how to construct country-specific factors from the U.S.-based Chemical Engineering s Plant Cost index. 

A survey of 500 plants that have implemented predictive maintenance methods indicates substantial improvements in reliability, availability and operating costs. The successful programs included in the survey include a cross-section of industries and provide an overview of the types of improvements that can be expected. Based on the survey results, major improvements can be achieved in maintenance costs, unscheduled machine failures, repair downtime, spare parts inventory, and both direct and in-direct overtime premiums. In addition, the survey indicated a dramatic improvement in machine life, production, operator safety, product quality and overall profitability. 

The degree and the extent of segregation have a direct impact on the investment and the operating costs. A helpful overview of different multipurpose plant concepts can be found in the text by Rauch [5],... 

Quick scan survey of the industrial processes at plant level to get an initial overview of the processes and technologies used as well as a collection of basic data, e.g. amount of chemicals used, cost of chemicals purchased, number of pieces or other indications that might be used as unit of payment2 in the Chemical Leasing contract. 

Goals, technology and results of full-scale applications on some types of waste waters are discussed in more detail in the following sections. An overview of technological features, operating parameters and treatment costs of full-scale plants for waste water ozonation is given in Table 3-3. 

Table 3-3 Overview of technological features, operating parameters and treatment costs of full-scale plants for waste water ozonation. 

Computerization of procedures in nuclear industry seems to be a design trend as shown in Table 1. Spurgin et al. (1993) described an overview of many computer-based procedure system. Now many nuclear power plants (e.g, Beznau, Chooz B, Civaux, Temelin) use various t) es of computer-based procedure(CBP) system. The driving forces include the limit of paper-based procedure(PBP) presentation ways, including lack of interactive capabilities between PBP and sophisticated systems, and the high volume and cost associated with paper manuals used in complex and technically demanding environments. (Wourms and Rankin, 1994)... 

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