Impact of process selection on material and energy flow

Abstract

Within the four-wall of a manufacturing plant, different resources including material and energy are consumed across process chains in order to fabricate their raw materials into a finished product. The increased efficiencies will enhance their productivities by reducing their production cost from either consuming less resource, or increasing outputs through improving the performance of their processes and systems. Therefore, this research aims to demonstrate the impact of process selection towards the material and energy flow of a product by comparing two different process flows of a compression terminal. A material and energy flow model was developed and the material and energy hot spots were identified. The improvement of the reduction of the associated environmental impact was also demonstrated.