Carbon Footprint
Manufacturers Monthly - October 2010
Award shows sustainable water management pays-off
A leading bathroomware manufacturer in Sydney has been rewarded for its endeavours to reduce water consumption and recycle wastewater in all stages of its manufacturing production process. Hartley Henderson writes.
Implementation of sustainable water management practices can result in significant cost savings and bottom line benefits for manufacturing enterprises, as well as a reduction in carbon footprints. CaromaDorf recently received the Green Globe Business Water Award for 2010 from the NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water for outstanding sustainability performance at its Wetherill Park factory in Sydney.
Through a range of initiatives, the company has actively sought to reduce water consumption and recycled wastewater into all stages of production.
Operations development manager at the Wetherill Park facility , Dan Thompson, says one of the initial steps was to install flowmeters into each process area of the factory and then set targets for consumption per product.
“This provided a focus on water usage and highlighted opportunities for optimal control and reduction,” Thompson told Manufactures’ Monthly.
“For example, reprogramming the vitreous china casting machines has resulted in saving more than 6 million litres of water each year.”
“CaromaDorf is the only sanitaryware company in Australia to adopt world-best pressure casting technology in producing toilet suites.
“This advanced technology provides the ability to minimise resource demand per piece of production in comparison to traditional casting techniques.
“It also enables the design and production of products with higher precision fluid dynamics, which is critical in achieving lower volume toilet flushing.”
The company has also invested in equipment designed to maximise the recycling of treated process water for later use in the pressure casting of its sanitaryware products.
According to Thompson, an ultra-filtration wastewater treatment plant was recently commissioned with the ability to save a further 32 million litres of water per year.
“The plant will enable us to reduce our mains water requirement by 65% and reduce process wastewater dumping to sewer by 80%,” he said.
“Other water-saving achievements include reprogramming raw material discharge to elimiteanate 800t of slip water, 50% of which is water.
“A further 200t of slip waste has been eliminated through redesign of firing setter, and installation of a new glaze reclamation process has resulted in saving 9000L of water for reuse in cleaning operations.”
Recycled water treatment
The treatment plant, installed by Aquatic Engineering Australia (AEA), processes the water used in production and cleaning and is designed for a maximum flow of 185m3/day.
According to AEA managing director, Josh Bucholtz, the plant utilises a proven process with a high level of automation and monitoring.
“Significant benefits include reduced chemical and operating costs over the site’s exisiting water treatment plant, high quality product water, simple operation, and excellent return on investment,” Bucholtz said.
“Wastewater from the manufacturing process is collected and pumped to a 25,000L equalisation tank where the pH is corrected and suspended solids monitored via a suspended solids meter to prevent potential overloading of the ultra-filtration (UF) plant.
“In the first pre-treatment stage the wastewater is pumped through a hydrocyclone to separate heavy solid matter which flows into a sludge storage tank. Clean water flows to a clarifier for further removal of solids and then to the UF feed tank via a weir.
“Following pre-filtering, the water enters the UF membranes and the product water flows into the recycled water storage tanks where it is automatically chlorinated for disinfection purposes.”
Flowmeter technology
The 16 new flow meters installed at the plant were supplied by FoxAll Fidera.
Chris Econ, applications engineer with the company, says the Foxboro IMT25 magnetic flow meter transmitter, combined with a Foxboro 8001A dc magnetic flow tube, was chosen because it offers the best all-round value for this application.
“In addition, features including large surface area electrodes and automatic excitation polarity change provide superior stability and low power consumption,” said Econ.
“The stainless steel perforated grid imbedded in the flow tube lining adds durability, and this coupled with the ‘keyed’ fixing of the liner to the flanges makes the 8001A impervious to temperature swings and vacuum.”
AEA 02 9569 5504, www.aquatic-engineering.com, CaromaDorf 13 14 16, www.caroma.com.au, FoxAll Fidera 02 8825 6222, www.fidera.com.au
Manufacturers’ guide to carbon management
By Rob Stummer*
Manufacturers are under increasing pressure to document their environmental impact as customers are making purchasing decisions not only on the basis of price and quality but on contribution to global warming. But where do manufacturers start?
Data on environmental impact originates from every part of a company and can take many forms. This means that, technologically, it is a major challenge. But the nontechnical barriers to launching an effective program are not to be underestimated.
Many of the problems companies experience as they try to implement an environmental program of this type stem from the lack of clear ownership. Who within the company owns the issues?
An effective environmental management program is only possible once it becomes an issue at the ‘board of directors’ level. Once this is part of the corporate strategy, a company is in a position to put much harder policies into place and can force the different departments and cross functional teams to collaborate around the issue.
Adequately tracking environmental footprint data is almost impossible while using ad hoc systems like spreadsheets because outside of an enterprise application, no combination of spreadsheets is comprehensive enough to do the job. True environmental footprint management can involve a complex and huge body of data and the natural place for the data and where most of it is already to be found is within the enterprise system, the ERP system.
Currently, manufacturers with any degree of environmental footprint measurement rely almost exclusively on either standalone carbon footprint software or on one-off integrations between ERP tools and either packaged or custom software.
To this end, there are a few questions to ask enterprise software vendors that claim to offer a solution in the area. Questions about the flexibility and broad capabilities of these enterprise software tools are particularly important. Do they allow you to measure how your product is used, how much energy it consumes and whether it emits any substances?
Before selecting any environmental management solution, be sure to think not only of your immediate needs but also how your needs could change in the future and how the various enterprise solutions can continue to accommodate them.
*Rob Stummer is managing director of IFS Australia and New Zealand. Visit www.ifsworld.com
Print solutions key to carbon reduction
To reduce carbon emissions, innovative businesses not only consider manufacturing processes, but also the role of back office functions like document management.
Many manufacturing business operations are heavily reliant on paper-based processes such as invoices, proof-of-delivery slips, consignment notes and order forms.
Studies show each piece of A4 paper accounts for 8.4 grams of carbon per sheet, therefore if a company is printing 1,000 pieces of paper per day, they are effectively emitting 8.4 kilograms of carbon.
A managed print solutions company, such as Upstream Print Solutions, works with manufacturers to build a tailored solution for this purpose. These tailored solutions include: Uforms, which remove the dependency on pre-printed stationary, replacing them with electronic forms sorted on the printer and integrated with the document management and business software; and Uscan and Uarchive, which facilitates fast and easy document recognition using Optical Character Recognition (OCAR) and barcode technology.
Upstream Print Solutions, 1300 772 772, www.upstream.com.au