Nowadays, smart factories pay special attention to the environmental footprint
SISTRADE aims to develop a decision support tool to characterize and improve the eco-efficiency of the organization's production systems keeping in mind economic performance as well. This module is prepared to simulate scenarios and generate performance benchmarks, compared with reference levels.
Sistrade ECOManager appears within the mobilizing project PRODUTECH-PSI: New Products and Services for the Manufacturing Industry, in the activity PPS 5 - Energy and Environmental Efficiency of Production Systems. The purpose of this activity involves developing a tool to characterize and improve the eco-efficiency of production systems, where SISTRADE is involved in terms of development and results as well as software development and sale.
ECOManager allows:
> Facilitates the analysis/evaluation of mass balance and production systems energy (Inputs/outputs)
> Includes methodologies for defining indicators of economic and environmental performance (KPI and KEPI)
> Allows the integration of economic performance with the company's environmental performance (or processes) and generates the information necessary for the evaluation of eco-efficiency
> Presentation of results as Dashboards (summary tables) of charts and tables based on the key variables for the user
> Generation of economic and environmental profile of the company or process under study
> Depending on the results obtained, the user can set priorities and measure the most significant inefficiencies, which also allow the implementation of the improvement actions focused on reducing costs, on the more efficient use of resources and raw materials, and reducing the environmental impacts of the activity
Innovative Features
- Simulation of scenarios and definition of economic and environmental goals:
- With the results, the software will allow the user to simulate changes in the manufacturing process or in company processes and evaluate the gains that may result from those changes. The simulation scenarios can also help the user to understand what changes/improvements should be performed to achieve certain goals/objectives.
- The inclusion of performance benchmarks for various lines of activity (benchmarking):
- The software foresees the inclusion of reference and average values of the most representative resources typically consumed by a given line/sector as well as the (solid, liquid or gas) emissions. With the inclusion of reference values, the user can compare the performance of process or company with the reference values of the lines.
- Incorporation of listings of the best practices and techniques by line.
- The listings of the best practices will allow the user support and guide to lessen the typical inefficiency problems and situations of the line. These measures are meant to help the user to improve the performance of the process or the company.
Eco-efficiency
Eco-efficiency unites two "eco" dimensions - economy and ecology, to relate the product or service value to environmental influence. The primary goal of eco-efficiency is to increase the net value of the company /process/product "Do More With Less".
Eco-efficiency can be performance metrics of sustainable companies and organizations, in order to show the economic and ecological progress, translated by contribution (value) for the welfare and corresponding more or less efficient use of environmental, economic and human resources.
The quantification of eco-efficiency stimulates business valorization, either by revenues of the effective cost reduction (of materials, energy and environmental damages) or by transparency in the communication of product/processes features.
Eco-efficiency performance characterization
Sistrade ECOManager software is a decision support tool that combines environmental performance with economic performance. The aim is to quantify the eco-efficiency of a company or process/service, and the assessment of its progress compared to objectives and targets set.
This decision support tool is also an improvement scenarios simulator allowing iterative convergence of the decision with the objectives and targets and the management of alternative hypotheses.
In Sistrade ECOManager, the presentation of results is adjustable by the user and uses a language fully integrated into the company management control, in the fields: environmental, economic and social.
Software
Sistrade ECOManager presents results for decision support in four "modules":
- Analysis of Mass Flow and Energy (AMFE);
- Environmental Performance Evaluation (EPE);
- Model of Environmental Impact Calculation (MEIC);
- Value Calculation Model (VCM).
During the eco-efficiency process quantification, the tool allows the integration of management control by the means of standard procedures:
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The users of this tool can choose between three versions that differ in the level of details of the required information, regarding the processes and processes and consequently in presenting more or less aggregated results.
The simplest Sistrade ECOManager version is suitable for a user with no experience in the application of methodologies: AMFE, EPE, MEIC or VCM, but who knows and holds information on operational control of processes and the definition of objectives and goals. In this version, the study is limited to the processes identified by the user. For example, material consumption is accounted, but the environmental influence of the process upstream, resulting from the extraction/production/transport of materials is not taken into account. As for the waste, only the influence of environmental waste treatment is considered, downstream of the process, when the destination is incineration or landfilling.
Finally, the user can apply the advanced version which consists of a customized product that incorporates knowledge and specific information about the manufacturing system to map/review, and details of possible improvements to be made.
The customisation requires substantial software changes that can be made only with the intervention of the technical team of Sistrade ECOManager.
