Spray Drier - Another view

Hello Friends, I am late again due to shifting to some very interesting industry this time making very useful product Furfural from Bagasse.

The incident of yesterday's interaction forced me to come back to the blog for sharing.

Yesterday I met vice president of a growing mid size company in Gujarat. He told me that spray driers can not be counter current and I should learn this fact. The reason he explained is that dried powder shall be carried away by hot incoming air and therefore you need a cyclone separator at the top for separation of solids & air.

Quite interesting ......This forcefully made me to think about fundamentals of drying......but later on. Before that I thought about creativity of Human mind. its brilliant......it's unlimited......it's really really much much bigger than what we can think of.

Yes dear, all of you should take this as a challenge on this blog itself that how to prove this wrong & how to prove it right.

In the beginning I thought I should re-think on the basics of spray driers and then searched on net also. So I found so many picture / images here.

He may not be fully wrong also, but the word 'Spray driers can not be countercurrent' was not right I am sure.

Really its very difficult for me to write any thing on this topic now. The basic reason he mentioned was that if flow is counter current solid particles will go up with the air & you need a cyclone separator for recovery. Is it really so??

I think it is always so whether it is counter current or co-current. Isn't it?? Most of the pictures on the above link are having cyclone separator. So this argument was also not so good for making spray dries co-current.

In fact, If I see the principle of drying and nature of most of the solids where spray drying is essential or most suitable, it is always better / preferable (Few Exceptions depending on nature of solids) to go for counter current as driving force is always higher and moisture content in dried product from the same size is less.

In fact, those applications where spray drier is generally used, I will not prefer to go for it as it is highly energy intensive & capital intensive compared to thin film drying which I have already done for a very highly hygroscopic material. I will try to put the data for that installation in one of the next articles.

I will prefer spray driers mostly for hygroscopic material with sticky nature in wet condition otherwise its better to go for other options.

Get Free Updates: *Please click on the confirmation link sent in your Spam folder of Email*

Continue to read this post...

Collapse this post back.

Easy way to find altitude of the Plant

Altitude of a plant location is very important in terms of designing of your vacuum systems, identifying boiling points for correct calculations & design of distillation system, boil-off systems etc.

It is also important in terms of correct sizing of condensers, reboilers due to change in enthalpies, significant change in LMTD will cause errors in design if percent variation is large specially when temperature difference are lower.

Therefore, it should be identified correctly.

Though the best method is to measure it at site location using barometers, however this is not always possible due to absence of such meters. The major problem in it is that normally designers are actually away from the location.

So here are two quick methods to understand the actual barometric pressure.

Method-1
Use any vacuum pump which is reliable & relatively new. if you are installing a new pump or have recently installed a new pump then run it on shut off condition with a pressure transmitter in the suction line. The shut off reading will practically be equal to the barometric pressure at site.

But you need to be sure in this case that pump should be designed for 1 torr or lesser shutoff pressure. if it is designed for higher shut off pressure, you need to subtract the design shut off from actual reading of pressure transmitter during test mentioned above.

So, if pump is designed for shut off pressure of 720 Torr and pressure reading during shut off test is 10 torr then barometric pressure will be 730 Torr at that site.

Method-2
Another method is use of google map service. For this you need to download the file altitude.html from the link Here.

Now you need to just identify your plant location and you will quickly come to know the altitude of your plant from MSL (Mean Sea Level).

Get Free Updates: *Please click on the confirmation link sent in your Spam folder of Email*

Continue to read this post...

Collapse this post back.

When to Use PSD system?

Today there was a comment on Name of specific Industries where we can use PSD (Pressure Swing Distillation) system on my previous article. Out of interest of few visitors I would like to suggest few points.

Also this post onwards, I will try to post very short posts but may be many on the same topic.

Request feedback from all of you on this kind of posts.

See, the pressure swing distillation means - More than one distillation columns in series but at different pressures to achieve the desired purity of one component due to shift in Azeo condition with respect to pressure.

Let me explain again.....with an Example of Ethanol & Ethyl Acetate mixture.
As per literature data, the composition at two different pressures are as below

Pressure Ethanol Ethyl Acetate
760 mm Hg 31% 69%
1500 mmHg 39% 61%
300 mmHg 23% 77%
25 mmHg 13% 87%

Considering the wide difference in Azeo composition in the given system, If I choose say 1500 mmHg pressure of first column & 25 mmHg pressure of second column then the first column top will be richer (Feed is 69% EA & 31% Ethanol at ambient condition which is generally expected from any system) in Ethanol.

This is because top composition will be azeo composition at 1500 mmHg pressure i.e. 39% Ethanol while feed is having 31% Ethanol, so bottom shall be More EA, thus it is possible to get pure EA at the bottom......Wait if you are not clear.....read more below.

Now top of first column which is 39% Ethanol & 61% EA is fed to second column which is operating at say 25 mmHg. Now at this pressure Azeo composition is 13% Ethanol. So most of the Ethanol will settle at Bottom & EA rich top will be (13% Ethanol + 87% EA) coming out from top.

Now this top stream of second column is fed back to first column along with feed. So feed will further get rich in EA. So more EA will settle at the bottom of second column. BUT top will remain same at Azeo of 1500 mmHG & will go to second column again.

Thus with this kind of cycling eventually you will end up with pure EA at bottom of first column and Pure Ethanol at the bottom of second column. All tops will be fed to next column through recycling. This is how PSD works for any system.

However, the limitation is if difference in the Azeo compostion is small then you may need more such columns OR it may not be possible to use PSD at all.

Hope it is more clear now....

Get Free Updates: *Please click on the confirmation link sent in your Spam folder of Email*

Continue to read this post...

Collapse this post back.

Process Intensification - 4, Loop Reactor

Process Intensification has been our focus since last few posts and I have already covered two most common and most discussed equipments under this topic. Static mixer - which are already in use by the industry and Micro Reactors which are still waiting for good response from industry.

Similarly the third one which is specifically used in few of the industries is Jet Loop reactors which also qualifies to PI category - One particular configuration developed by BUSS Chem Tech

So we are going to discuss loop reactors with different variations in the configuration e.g. simple circulation loop reactors, venturi reactors etc. & then finally Jet reactors which are derived from above systems.

Now let us start from the beginning on these reactors. In the beginning only CSTR were there & at that time need was felt of increasing the mass transfer as well as heat transfer but the invention of putting a circulation loop with one heat exchanger was only based on the objective of increase in heat transfer area so as to reduce the batch cycle time & this is how the concepts of various loops came into picture.

CSTR

The above CSTR configurations were developed around 1930s.

Simple Loop Reactor
So simple configuration was similar to the following diagram for a general circulation reactor. They were developed around 1950s.


Now as you see, the exchanger in the loop is for providing faster heat transfer outside the reactor due to limitation of heat transfer area in the given volume of CSTR type vessel. So basically it was due to very low surface area to volume ratio of CSTR (As shown in Micro Reactors article).

Another version was developed with static mixer in the upstream of exchanger for very quick reactions to remove the heat as soon as reactants react. They were developed around 1960s.



Loop With Spray at Top
The next generation of loop reactors was with spray type nozzle at the top as shown in the picture. In fact, they are designed for enhanced GAS LIQUID interaction by providing a top spray in the gas zone.




Loop Reactor with Venturi
Further improvements in the loop reactors were done by introducing a venturi in the system. This was slightly different than first picture of this post. The difference was in the discharge zone of venturi, the discharge in this type of reactor was at the inlet of reactor - no mixing in liquid zone as shown in the picture. This was mainly developed to enhance the circulation of gas from the top headspace of the reactor to minimize the safety issues with hazardous & explosive gases.

Jet Loop Reactor
The Next generation loop reactors are Jet Loop reactors as shown in the first picture from BUSS reactor. The difference here is that the Jet mixes with liquid with a very high speed & therefore the reaction speed goes very high in the mixing zone of the Ejector. For example, the reaction rate can be increased by a factor of say 25 - 40 times in a jet reactor compared to CSTR.

So if you think you need higher capacity from your existing system of CSTR etc. OR if you are planning to design a reactor for slow gas liquid reactions then think on considering a loop reactor with circulation exchanger for faster heat transfer + plan for either a SM in the piping or plan for a eductor at the bottom of reactor which will thoroughly agitate your liquid mass.

Get Free Updates: *Please click on the confirmation link sent in your Spam folder of Email*

Continue to read this post...

Collapse this post back.

Process Intensification - 3, Micro Reactors

In the series, the next most interesting & commonly known equipment is the micro reactors, the buzz word of the current times in process engineering. First article on introduction of PI is Here & Second article on Static Mixers as PI equipment is Here.

As name suggests - Micro - means mini - reactor is a device in which chemical reactions take place in a confinement with typical lateral dimensions below 1 mm; the most typical form of such confinement are microchannels or capillaries. The microreactor is usually a continuous flow reactor. Microreactors offer many advantages over conventional scale reactors, including vast improvements in energy efficiency, reaction speed and yield, safety, reliability, scalability.



I am not going in to too much theory & I am directly putting up examples for quick understanding of underlying principles & benefits due to the changes.

So, Let us first see the advantages & disadvantages of Micro Reactor Technology (MRT).

Benefits

1. Very high surface to volume ratio

To see this more clearly, I am using one example from Sigmaaldrich website. Let us understand it by comparing a case of CSTR & MRT.

Case-1 CSTR
This is an example of CSTR of 1 KL at 500 rpm for an exothermic case with outside cooling.



In this case you can see that temperature distribution os very uneven & hence the reaction control, quality etc are not uniform.

Case-2 MRT

In this case, the temperature distribution is so uniform that quality is controlled in a much better way.

Therefore, because of very high surface area / unit volume of reaction mass, the control on heat transfer is very very good compared to CSTR. This is very important factor, if you can realize the importance of this aspect of any reactor. This factor alone can result into many significant differences e.g. very good conversion, lower level of impurities, higher yield etc.

Just to see the impact Do you Know, what are the typical values of surface area to per unit volume - This is

- 6 Sq Meter / cubic Meter of reactor volume for CSTR
- 100 Sq Meter / cubic Meter of reactor volume for 100 mL glass flask
- 20000 Sq Meter / cubic Meter of reactor volume for Micro Reactor.

Yes, it is almost 15 times more in Laboratory & this is the main area where most of the lab scale & bigger scale differences occur. AND Oh! my GOD - 3000 times more in MRT. My suggestion - Buddy forget Micro reactors, invent something which can just give you say 1000 Sq Meter / Cubic meter of volume, It can do wonders - believe me


2. Better mixing

Since, the micro volumes are mixed in a capillary, the mixing is instant & uniform. Due to very high length of the mixing path per unit volume compared to any other reactor the design is very effective. Therefore, the unformity of mass is almost same in the entire reactor and hence more uniformity in quality can be achieved.

This is very important aspect in some of the industries related to performance chemicals e.g. ethoxylates where more & more unformity (peak ethoxylates) is desirable.

Ultimately this results in very good purity of product by suppressing the impurities formation and very high yields due to the same factor.


3. Instant removal of the material out of the reaction zone

The holding volumes or system volumes are so low that they do not affect the reactions & therefore even equilibrium reactions can achieve higher per pass conversions due to very quick removal of products as soon as they are formed.

Therefore, this is very important in case of equilibrium driven reactions or where yield are impacted significantly due to side reactions and where the product is sequentially converted to other byproducts

Suppose you are conducting one reaction A -> B -> C & your final product is B. Also consider the case where A ->B & A -> C reactions are happening. Then in a CSTR you will either reduce the conversion of A to limit concentration of C or you will optimize parameters to suppress C in second case. But in MRT, there is very little formation of C in either case due to very low volumes especially in first reaction.

Hence, you can have very high conversion saving recycles of A and higher yield due to lesser formation of C.


4. Improved Safety

Since the volumes handled are very less - micro litres - the hazardous reactions can safely be carried out in MRT and very little efforts & investment is required in case of hazardous / run away reactions e.g. polymerisation or ethoxylation or explosive materials handling.

Therefore, investments required on safety systems, instrumentations, losses due to release of chemicals / pressures etc & hence they are environment friendly also.


5. Very High Heat Flux

Microreactors typically have heat exchange coefficients of at least 1000 kW / M3 / K to 500000 kW / M3 / K vs. a few kilowatts in conventional glassware (1 l flask ~10 kW / M3 / K). Thus, microreactors can remove heat much more efficiently than vessels and even critical reactions where exotherms are very high & instantaneous, can be performed safely at high temperatures.

This factor is also very important for example nitration is a very quick & highly exothermic reaction in general which can be safely carried out in MRT.


6. Continuous Processes

Microreactors are normally operated continuously. This allows no batch hold ups & higher time cycle before workup. Important aspect in case of unstable compunds where holding time results in more byproducts or side products formation & hence higher selectivity.

Mixing in a batch process causes a very different concentration profile compared to Continuous process. In a batch, reagent A is filled in and reagent B is slowly added. Thus, B encounters initially a high excess of A. In a microreactor, A and B are mixed nearly instantly and B won't be exposed to a large excess of A. This may be an advantage or disadvantage depending on the reaction mechanism.

So many reactions where batch is a forced neccesity due to full conversion desired, the MRT can be used as continuous option. In such cases there is no other technology available till date other than PI which can help in converting batch to continuous with 100% conversion.


7. No Scale Up Required

Since the MRT is just a module technology no further scale up is required form lab to commercial scale. Only addition of similar micro reactors will add up the capacity. This reduces product development cycle time & also losses in scale up during piloting, manpower, efforts & Energy is also saved.

Now let us understand disadvantages or rather problems in using MRT.
Concerns

1. Only Liquid Systems

MRT is still struggling in terms of handling gases & solids and only liquid liquid reactions are well performed. I see this as a area for improvement required in MRT rather than a problem. May be why solids in MRT is my first question OR when we are talking about Micro why not nano particles if any solid catalyst is required.

Yes, reactions with solids as reactants will still be a problem.

Regarding gases handling, the problem is not so critical its a matter of pressure handling but yes it is a concern as of now.

Hope it is useful for all of you & now you will start thinking on using them.

Get Free Updates: *Please click on the confirmation link sent in your Spam folder of Email*

Continue to read this post...

Collapse this post back.

ISO - Standard or Business - 5

Further, is it true that ISO is for people, their safety, their interest as consumer etc...etc.???

ISO Claims - "They are useful to ...........and, ultimately, to people in general in their roles as consumers and end users"

Ha...Ha...Ha....Consumers, who do not even know what for this company is having ISO. is it for product or for finance or for purchase or ......?????

HAVE YOU EVER FELT ANY PROTECTION DUE TO ISO.........

See my previous articles on ISO - Part-1, Part-2, Part-3 & Part-4.

Consumers do not know anything about ISO coverage & even for a multi product company it is not clear If all the products of this company are covered under ISO or not. ISO is safeguarding them against harmful content in the product or not. The raw material which is used in this product is having or not having any quality issue which ISO can not guarantee as purchase process is not covered under ISO. All these facts are not known to any consumer in general & still ISO claim to safeguard & to be beneficial to the consumer & end user.

Company can enjoy good image in the market becasue they only publish "ISO:9000 Certified"........other info is missing. Why???? Because blindly every one is asking for only ISO certificate.........it doesn't matter if it is only for your HR (There is no link to product in this case but this is also sufficient).

I also know multi product / multi location companies where only one certificate is used for the entire company and therefore question comes - is everything covered?

The biggest flaw, still ISO claims for safeguard of consumers...HOW???? can anyone justify this?

Fed up man...Im impatient to write more on this topic. So will stop here & may come back later if I go through this subject in future.

Learning -4 It cannot be beneficial to consumers unless it is product & value chain focused. Currently it is process focused only that too with many exclusions permitted.

Disclaimer - This is a series of my personal views on ISO systems, its implementation, Effectiveness etc. They do not carry any legal issue related to my personal views under the human right of "Freedom of Speech".

Get Free Updates: *Please click on the confirmation link sent in your Spam folder of Email*

Continue to read this post...

Collapse this post back.

Process Intensification - 2, Static Mixers

My last post was focussed on general & brief overview of process intensification abbreviated PI. The term may be new to almost half of the population but we use it somewhere or somehow knowingly or unknowingly in our current life also.

As explained earlier, the miniaturisation is the key word for PI as best & smallest explanation. However, it can be simple on one side like static mixers and very complicated like immobilized solvents for absorption & desorption OR SDR (spinning disc reactor) etc. on the other side.

So instead of discussing it in general, let us go through these specific examples of PI equipments & how can we utilize them in our life...CHEMICAL life...; our first item is - Static Mixers.



According to wikipedia, the static mixers were invented by the Arthur D. Little Company in 1965. This device was licensed to the Kenics Corporation and marketed as the Kenics Motionless Mixer.

Static Mixers
A very simple piece of equipment & very easy to understand yet fully misunderstood by many of us. The basic image of an static mixer is the take a piece of pipe & fill it with any packing and your static mixer is ready. YES.....& ......NO.

YES.....because of its general construction......NO because improper design can lead to many failures and because of that you are not using it for real applications where it is more beneficial.

These mixers can be utilized for various purposes e.g. For slow Gas & Liquid Reactions where the BCT is very high & therefore, many benefits can be achieved by using SM for this type of slow reactions. Another example where we can use them effectively are homogeneous & quick mixing of liquid liquid systems.

In such cases, the benefits are many like BCT is reduced so the capacity can be enhanced from the same size of system OR the system volume can be reduced and hence the inherent safety is increased. The yields will be better due to complete or higher utilization of GAS, more uniform product due to lesser side product formation etc.

Can you think of any other good use of static mixers???

Now Let us classify SM in broad categories & how to estimate pressure drop.

1. LPD - Low pressure drop mixers for low viscosity applications.
2. ISG - Interfacial Surface Generator for high viscosity applications.

Now to estimate the pressure drop in a SM, following is the process.
First Assume the Mixer Diameter.

1. First Calculate the Reynold No as Nre = 6.31 w / mu D = 3161 Q sg / mu D


2. If Nre is < 500 the flow is laminar. Use either Fig.1 for LPD or Fig.3 for LLPD or Fig.5 for ISG mixers to estimate the pressure drop per element.









3. If Nre > 500 the flow is turbulent. The pressure drop per element is estimated from Fig.2 for LPD or Fig.4 for LLPD & Fig.6 for ISG mixers.









4. Multipy the pressure drop per element by the number of elements to obtain the estimated pressure drop through the mixer.


5. For turbulent flow, multiply the estimated pressure drop by the specific gravity and the correction factor K to obtain the actual pressure drop as below -
   
   K = 1.1 for mu upto 10 cp.
   K = 1.3 for mu from 10 to 100 cp.
   K = 1.5 for mu from 100 to 1000 cp.
   K = 1.6 for mu from 1000 to 5000 cp.



6. For laminar flow, the pressure drop is proportional to the viscosity. So for Figures 1, 3, & 5 which are based on a fluid having a viscosity of 10,000 cps, the actual pressure drop is calculated as follows
   
   Actual DP = Cal DP x Actual Viscosity / 10000


7. Now if calculated total pressure drop is more than allowable pressure drop use next higher diameter.

Some of the information & Graphs are from Staticmixers.com website.

Get Free Updates: *Please click on the confirmation link sent in your Spam folder of Email*

Continue to read this post...

Collapse this post back.

ISO - Standard or Business - 4

Continuing discussion on useless nature of ISO from previous post, the next one is on the actual spread of ISO business. This reflects how it can be utilized to earn quick money by many incompetent professionals just by using some jargons & those who are more vocal than others.

See my First Three Posts on ISO-1, ISO-2 & ISO-3

In fact, this is the best 'QUICK MONEY SCHEME' for everyone who are looking for some easy job, no actual output, only vocal & very good money for all collectively where the payee is also happy & reviever will always be happy in any case.

DO YOU AGREE.........

It is useful to suppliers to sell easily in the name of ISO systems. It is useful to so called (conformity assessment) professionals as they are very much essential in order to understand the code & implement it in the RIGHT way - hence so much employment is generated by ISO for those who can Interpret the code, it doesn't matter if they understand the technical process or value chain or not.

So purposefully the ISO code is written in such a manner that you can use the language as per your own interpretation and if you are more professional you hire some specialist & he will explain you the simple english in a complicated manner. (Without understanding your prcoesses, this is the beauty of the system that they don't need to understand your process).

And the purpose is to develop a community which can earn quickly & easily and in my personal opinion & view, this is the biggest & successful MLM system in the world. you earn & promote others to join as a consultant. Some may argue that they have a very good system of certification of consultants / experts & they are again regularly reviewed........So what......After all it is beneficial for them so they have to have some system in the eyes of customers, but no one failed.

So we can have any one as an ISO assessment specialist. The level of these specialist is such that they even do not know benchmarking - and anything told by operating person is accepted by them as a benchmark (Generally people start from worst achieved figures for continual improvement targets). Pitty???????? How can you be efficient & that's why I said this is not the fault of the system, it is implementation which is faulty. Error in the system is that it allows to take these side routes becasue of many reasons as listed one by one here and I will compile all of them at the end of this series, if possible for me because of time constraints.

These are only one or two points which I am raising through this Blog as & when they come to my mind. If I go in detail or anyone else (I would love to invite you to write your frank opinion on this issue as a guest writer) each point can become a single chapter covering its impact on entire value chain - May be in future I'll do that if time permits.

Learning -3 It is beneficial to many becasue it is made so. It should be taken as a system not as a saleable product & if MLM is stopped, it may be more useful.

Disclaimer - This is a series of my personal views on ISO systems, its implementation, Effectiveness etc. They do not carry any legal issue related to my personal views under the human right of "Freedom of Speech".

Get Free Updates: *Please click on the confirmation link sent in your Spam folder of Email*

Continue to read this post...

Collapse this post back.

Process Intensification - 1

Process Intensification is basically a miniaturisation of process equipments and is a revolutionary approach to process and plant design & is not very old concept, hardly a decade old.

The concept was originally pioneered in the 1970s by Colin Ramshaw and his co-workers at ICI, where PI was defined as a 'reduction in plant size by at least a factor 100'. PI is about providing a chemical process with the precise environment required which results in better products, and processes which are safer, cleaner, smaller - and cheaper.

PI (as practised at BHR Group) is a business driven approach - the focus is always on what business benefits are targeted and might be achieved.

Features of PI Solutions

Move from batch to continuous processing.

Use of intensive reactor technologies with high mixing and heat transfer rates (e.g. FlexReactor, HEX Reactors) in place of conventional stirred tanks.

Multidisciplinary approach, which considers opportunities to improve the process technology and underlying chemistry at the same time.

'Plug and play' process technology to provide flexibility in a multiproduct environment

Established PI Benefits

capital cost reduced by 60%.

90% reduction in impurity levels resulting in significantly more valuable product.

70% plus reduction in energy usage and hence substantial reduction in operating cost.

90% yield first time out - better than fully optimised batch process.

99% reduction in reactor volume for a potentially hazardous process, leading to inherently safe operation.

In simple words process intensification is the development of novel equipments and techniques, as compared to the present state-of-art, to bring dramatic improvements in manufacturing and processing, substantially decreasing equipment size/production-capacity ratio, energy consumption, or waste production.

Perhaps a simpler definition could be; any chemical engineering development that leads to a substantially smaller, cleaner, and more energy-efficient technology is process intensification but the development of new catalysts is not part of PI.

Image from University of Twente

It should be noted that many of the equipments are of type never known before but there are quite few equipments which have been available to the chemical engineer but their potential was never fully exploited. Examples are compact heat exchangers, static mixers, etc.

Examples of new developments are the HIGEE column, spinning disc reactor, oscillating flow reactor, loop reactors, spinning tube in tube reactor, Heat exchange reactor, supersonic gas liquid reactor, static mixing catalysts, microchannel reactors, microchannel heat exchangers, etc.

Process intensification involves the development of new compact devices and techniques that will lead to substantial improvements in the production processes, reductions in the size of production equipment, lower investment costs, lower energy use and waste production, and finally to more sustainable technologies.

So in short, Process Intensification is basically increasing the output by reducing equipment size & the associated benefits are the reduced energy consumption, lesser impurity formation, more selectivity & hence more yield, lesser waste, reduced hazards due to handling smaller volumes etc.

In my next post I will try to cover few equipments one by one in more detail.

Some part of this article is from BHR site

Get Free Updates: *Please click on the confirmation link sent in your Spam folder of Email*

Continue to read this post...

Collapse this post back.

ISO - Standard or Business - 3

Sorry friends, was away for quite some time due to my busy schedule & now I am partially back. Partially back becasue still busy but now trying to put some time as I got few ideas to share with. So going ahead from the last post ont he topic........

Now further claims from ISO:
"ISO standards contribute to making the development, manufacturing and supply of products and services more efficient, safer and cleaner."

Another example of escaping scope is - many companies cover only few manufacturing activities mainly technical part of it. They do not want to include other processes as TPM system specify for example, purchase, employee welfare, HRD, P&A, Accounts are seldomly involved in the implementation. Do you think, it is correct in total spirit of implementing a world class standard? Do you think it would be efficient without involving total value chain?

NO.........

your processes & hence quality can never be at world class level if your total supply chain or value chain is not involved in the combined process. Example: if you leave out your purchase to non-standard or substandard quality how can you call it of world class standard & safer? Then re-working on it, so how it can be efficient also?

Here is one more quote from ISO which itself says that in the entire system there is no mention about employees - "The International Standards which ISO develops are very useful. They are useful to industrial and business organizations of all types, to governments and other regulatory bodies, to trade officials, to conformity assessment professionals, to suppliers and customers of products and services in both public and private sectors, and, ultimately, to people in general in their roles as consumers and end users".

So contribution of ISO towards making not only manufacturing & supply of products but services also efficient & better is totally an imaginary thing & is beyond somebody’s brain to believe on such statements & claims. Tell me is it possible to have better services if one of your main or supportive function is not covered under ISO. But you can’t show me any single company where all the functions or sub processes have been covered.

I am totally puzzled when I think why is it permitted? Or why the provision is kept to permit such exclusions & then only answer I repeatedly get is that ISO is not meant for any systems – it is just to sell their own business / certificates - & again it’s a two way business for some American / European companies or whosoever sells it – HOW………ISO sells the certificate & to help them in selling these certificates, the companies demand you to be certified by ISO (because it is BETTER) & as a result the product / service from their competitor also become costlier. Therefore, ISO is not a certification now it’s a business organization which is running with the help of many companies.

Any standardization process can not be by choice that too for a so claimed world class standard. How can you think of a company manufacturing process be at world class while the person who is running it, is exploited or is not working under minimum working atmosphere guidelines for example – Companies normally ask employees for overtime during shutdown periods etc and long stay hours can extend up to 16 Hrs a day. Yes of course an off is also given or some double gap is allowed however, do you think if somebody stretches himself beyond 8 hrs that too in night shift can work safely. Can ISO justify this? It is my direct question to any of ISO consultants / experts – can they justify it? In the name of business needs we are exploiting them & no company would like to loose such opportunities and therefore, ISO permits such exclusions’ so that both are happy……Company is also happy having ISO & ISO is also happy after selling – else no one will buy it.

Learning -2 Without considering all aspects i.e. Man, Machine & Material, standard cannot be implemented in totality and it cannot be safer & efficient.

Disclaimer - This is a series of my personal views on ISO systems, its implementation, Effectiveness etc. They do not carry any legal issue related to my personal views under the human right of "Freedom of Speech".

Get Free Updates: *Please click on the confirmation link sent in your Spam folder of Email*

Continue to read this post...

Collapse this post back.