Production-capacity utilization

Table 11. U.S. Polypropylene Production, Capacity Utilization, and Prices ...

A simple definition that I have heard for aggregate planning is two- to 12-month capacity plarming. There are three components of this type of planning. The first is the business plan, which determines the strategy for capacity and production. The second is the production plan, which creates the production capacity utilization. The third is the master schedule, which establishes the production schedule for the specific products. 

Flows due to materials, inventory, information, and cash Throughput due to movement of products Capacity utilization... 

Corrective action Appropriate inventory segmentation (sufficient visibility) Sufiicient production capacities Efiicient production capacity utilization Effective, accurate inventory management Effective distribution planning Effective utilization of specific transport modes Efficient distribution processes Eunctioning tracking and tracing No capacity-related problems with service providers... 

Some of the physical properties of fatty acid nitriles are Hsted in Table 14 (see also Carboxylic acids). Eatty acid nitriles are produced as intermediates for a large variety of amines and amides. Estimated U.S. production capacity (1980) was >140, 000 t/yr. Eatty acid nitriles are produced from the corresponding acids by a catalytic reaction with ammonia in the Hquid phase. They have Httie use other than as intermediates but could have some utility as surfactants (qv), mst inhibitors, and plastici2ers (qv). 

Acetic anhydtide [108-24-7] (CH2C0)20, is a mobile, colorless liquid that has an acrid odor and is a more pierciag lacrimator than acetic acid [64-19-7]. It is the largest commercially produced carboxyUc acid anhydride U.S. production capacity is over 900,000 t yearly. Its chief iadustrial appHcation is for acetylation reactions it is also used ia many other appHcations ia organic synthesis, and it has some utility as a solvent ia chemical analysis. 

Woddwide, the production capacity for polyester fiber is approximately 11 million tons about 55% of the capacity is staple. Annual production capacity iu the United States is approximately 1.2 million tons of staple and 0.4 million tons of filament. Capacity utilization values of about 85% for staple and about 93% for filament show a good balance of domestic production vs capacity (105). However, polyester has become a woddwide market with over half of the production capacity located iu the Asia/Pacific region (106). The top ranked PET fiber-produciug countries are as follows Taiwan, 16% United States, 15% People s RepubHc of China, 11% Korea, 9% and Japan, 7% (107—109). Woddwide, the top produciug companies of PET fibers are shown iu Table 3 (107-109). 

Batchwise operated multipurpose plants are per defmitionem the vehicle for the production of fine chemicals. There are, however, a few examples of fine chemicals produced ia dedicated, coatiauous plants. These can be advantageous if the raw materials or products are gaseous or Hquid rather than soHd, if the reaction is strongly exothermic or endothermic or otherwise hazardous, and if the requirement for the product warrants a continued capacity utilization. Some fine chemicals produced by continuous processes are methyl 4-chloroacetoacetate [32807-28-6] C H CIO [32807-28-6], and malononittile [109-77-3] C2H2N2, made by Lonza dimethyl acetonedicarboxylate [1830-54-2] made by Ube and L-2-chloropropionic acid [107-94-8] C2H C102, produced by Zeneca. 

Figure 3 shows the capacity utilization resulting from the production program ia a multipurpose plant. The aimual percentage of occupation is shown on the x-axis reflecting the overall busiaess condition, and the level of equipment utilization is shown on thejy-axis, reflecting the degree of sophistication of the fine chemicals to be produced. Several conclusions can be drawn ...

Fig. 3. Multipurpose plant capacity utilization where D represents products A, B, C, D, and E U the changeovers and X the time the plant was idle.

Worldwide propylene production and capacity utilization for 1992 are given in Table 6 (74). The world capacity to produce propylene reached 41.5 X 10 t in 1992 the demand for propylene amounted to 32.3 x 10 t. About 80% of propylene produced worldwide was derived from steam crackers the balance came from refinery operations and propylene dehydrogenation. The manufacture of polypropylene, a thermoplastic resin, accounted for about 45% of the total demand. Demand for other uses included manufacture of acrylonitrile (qv), oxochemicals, propylene oxide (qv), cumene (qv), isopropyl alcohol (see Propyl alcohols), and polygas chemicals. Each of these markets accounted for about 5—15% of the propylene demand in 1992 (Table 7). 

The bulk of this benzoic acid production capacity is consumed internally by the producers. Kalama and Chatterton convert over half of their production to phenol. A large portion of Velsicol s benzoic acid production is utilized in the manufacture of glycol dibenzoate plasticizer esters. 

Another perspective for production simulation is automatic capacity utilization optimization of multi-product systems. As discussed, this task may be very difficult because of the many different variables and boundary conditions. In an environment integrating optimization and simulation, the optimizer systematically varies the important decision variables in an external loop while the simulation model carries out production planning with the specified variables in the internal loop (see Gunther and Yang [3]). The target function, for example total costs or lead times, can be selected as required. The result of optimization is a detailed proposal for the sequence of the placed orders. 

Production and distribution quantities can vary from a minimum utilization to full capacity utilization... 

Raw material consumption rates in production are variable depending on the degree of capacity utilization... 

Production analysis considers total capacity volume and total production quantity indices across all considered production steps of the value chain. Production quantities are near to capacity. Therefore, sales decisions are sufficient to utilize production capacities as shown in fig. 80. 

Domar assumes at the outset that there is full capacity utilization, and moreover that the fraction of labour force employed is a function of the ratio between national income and productive capacity (ibid. 37). Since the supply side models the economy s capacity to produce output, full employment of the labour force requires that the potential change of output is equal to the change in output demanded via the multiplier. Hence, the full employment balanced rate of growth can be established by setting... 

The main drawback with the thermochemical route for biomass utilization is the strong dependence on scale-up. To be competitive, the capacity has to be of the order of a small oil refinery (approx. 1 million tonnes per year), but there then exists the problem of the cost of transporting the biomass relatively long distances to this production capacity. Pyrolysis or related technologies ( flash or fast ) could transform biomass into liquid products that are more easily transported, and these liquid products could then be the input for a large, centralized... 

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