Jutta Geldermann

Fuzzy outranking for environmental assessment: Case study: iron and steel making industry

Recent years have seen a world-wide change in the environmental policy towards integrated pollution prevention, taking into account all environmental media. Consequently, the environmental assessment of production techniques has to consider multiple criteria which cannot be aggregated to one single index. The concepts of Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) seem a suitable means in order to implement Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) into integrated decision processes. The outranking methods as a special subgroup of MCDM methods are particularly suitable for integral decision making through the notion of weak preference and incomparability, which better represent the real decision situation, as demonstrated in this paper. Especially the outranking method PROMETHEE brings together flexibility and simplicity for the user and is therefore chosen for the enhancement towards the evaluation of fuzzy data on preferences, scores and weights.

Development of a multiple criteria based decision support system for environmental assessment of recycling measures in the iron and steel making industry

Abstract Recent years have seen a world-wide change in the environmental policy towards integrated pollution prevention and control, taking into account all environmental media. The integrated assessment of production processes under ecological, but also under technical and economic aspects requires specific methods. For preparing an investment decision in its entirety, the concepts of Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) seem to be more suitable for eco-management combined with investment decisions than Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). In this paper, the decision support system KOSIMEUS, which is a combination of process models simulated with a flowsheeting program and a multicriteria decision support system, is presented and illustrated with an example from the iron and steel making industry.

Integrated technique assessment with imprecise information as a support for the identification of best available techniques (BAT)

Abstract. The determination of Best Available Techniques (BAT) plays an essential role in the realisation of the IPPC-Directive 96/61/EC (concerning integrated pollution prevention and control) in all Member States of the European Union. From a methodological point of view, the BAT determination is based on a comprehensive cross-media assessment of the impacts on the environment in general and therefore forms a multi criteria decision situation. However, exact data for the description of the investigated techniques and their potential environmental impact are rarely obtainable. Therefore, a decision support tool for the identification of BAT should also take into account imprecise information. In this paper, the Outranking method PROMETHEE has been chosen as a multi criteria decision support. Enhancements towards the consideration of imprecise information are discussed, such as fuzzy intervals and incomplete data sets. The application of the conceived multi criteria decision support tool as well as a graphical sensitivity analysis is presented with the help of a case study from the iron and steel making industry.Zusammenfassung. Die Identifikation von Besten Verfügbaren Techniken (BVT) spielt eine wesentliche Rolle bei der Umsetzung der IVU-Richtline (96/61/EG, EG-Richtlinie über die integrierte Vermeidung und Verminderung der Umweltverschmutzung) in allen Mitgliedsstaaten. Aus methodischer Sicht stellt die Bestimmung von BVT eine Mehrzielentscheidung dar, die auf einer umfassenden medienübergreifenden Bewertung beruht. Allerdings können nur selten exakte Daten für die Beschreibung sämtlicher untersuchter Techniken und deren potentiellen Umweltauswirkungen erhoben werden. Daher sollte eine Entscheidungsunterstützung auch die Auswertung unvollständiger Informationen erlauben. In diesem Beitrag werden das Outranking-Verfahren PROMETHEE und seine Erweiterungsmöglichkeiten für die Berücksichtigung ungenauer Informationen, wie etwa Fuzzy Intervalle und unvollständige Datensätze, diskutiert. Anhand einer Fallstudie aus der Eisen- und Stahlindustrie wird die Anwendung des multikriteriellen Entscheidungsunterstützungssystems und einer graphischen Sensitivitätsanalyse vorgestellt.

Modified PROMETHEE approach for assessing energy technologies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to elaborate a multi‐criteria methodology for the performance assessment of energy supply technologies, which also takes into account the dynamics of technological change.Design/methodology/approach – The approach chosen is based on the multi‐criteria outranking methodology Preference Ranking Organisation METHod for Enrichment Evaluations (PROMETHEE), which is linked to the concept of technologys life cycle by assigning criteria weights depending on the actual development phase of a certain technology. The modifications to the PROMETHEE algorithm are described and the modified methodology is demonstrated by evaluating heat and power supply alternatives for a municipal area in Germany.Findings – The methodology is suitable for the evaluation of energy technologies taking into account varying preferences depending on their stage of maturity. It is a feasible alternative to other methodologies which allow for interconnections like the analytic network process. The resu...

Towards sustainable production networks

With the advent of more advanced process models and computational power, process integration technologies have gained in importance in improving production networks to a more sustainable production. The pinch analysis approach from the chemical engineering field in connection with multi-criteria analysis provides a consistent assessment method for different mass and energy flows within a company, an industry park or even throughout a supply chain network. It consequently strives for a more comprehensive approach to optimize the systems performance as opposed to focusing on single operational units. The advantage of the pinch analysis can be seen in the determination of the theoretical optimum for a given set of heat and material streams. The approach is illustrated in this by a case study on a bicycle company in China, where target values were identified for heat integration, water management and solvents recovery. A subsequent multi-criteria analysis facilitates the selection of a preferred option by combining the different target values and investigating the overall optimization potential of different process design options.

Multi-criteria Analysis for Technique Assessment:Case Study from Industrial Coating

Environmental policy is oriented toward integrated pollution prevention, taking into consideration all environmental media (air, water, land) and energy consumption. Therefore, methods for assessing environmentally relevant installations are needed which take economic, technical, and especially ecological criteria into account simultaneously. Mass and energy flow models are used for the representation of production processes and form the basis for the inventory phase in life‐cycle assessment (LCA). For the interpretation of LCA results and the weighting of the aggregated impact assessment indicators, approaches of multicriterion analysis (MCA) have been proposed. These can analyze ecological aspects as well as economic and technical criteria. Recent developments in LCA focus on decision support for policy makers or decision boards. Appropriate support for investment decisions on environmentally relevant installations, however, is rare. Based on a case study of the sector called surface coating, an MCA of environmentally relevant installations is described. With the help of a mass and energy flow management system, alternative scenarios, depicting the use of solvent‐reduced materials and environmentally friendly techniques, are modeled for the job coater processes in case studies of coating of mobile phones and coating of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) parts destined for the automobile industry. The modeled scenarios are further analyzed by using a multicriterion decision support module. The application of the outranking approach PROMETHEE is illustrated. A further investigation of the derived ranking can be obtained through sensitivity analyses. Moreover, the results derived by PROMETHEE are compared with the outcomes of the multicriterion approaches multiattribute utility theory and analytical hierarchy process.

Integrated technique assessment based on the pinch analysis approach for the design of production networks

Abstract Integrated Process Design aims at a holistic approach to process design, retrofitting, and operations planning. Cost and energy “targets” (i.e. the minimum possible values for these objectives) can be calculated based on pinch technology, which defines the enthalpy at which the hot and cold process streams are separated by the minimum temperature difference in heat exchanger networks. This approach is well established in process engineering and has recently been expanded to mass pinch analysis. The combination of engineering, process integration and Operations Research allows the consideration of a variety of economic and environmental process attributes for an integrated technique assessment, as a case study in the sector of automotive serial coating shows.

Proposal for an integrated approach for the assessment of cross-media aspects relevant for the determination of “best available techniques” bat in the european union

The EC Directive concerning integrated pollution prevention and control (IPPC Directive 96/61/EC) obliges all Member States to make an integrated assessment of the impacts on the environment “as a whole”, as regards granting permission for and the operation of environmentally relevant industrial installations. The determination of “Best Available Techniques” BAT plays an essential role in the material transformation of the IPPC-Directive. An integrated approach for the assessment of cross-media aspects of techniques for the determination of BAT is outlined in this paper, which is grounded on the basic concept of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), emphasising the need for decision support. The proposed assessment approach is applied to a case study sinter production in an integrated iron and steel works, which forms the base for several recommendations concerning further research.

Production planning by pinch analysis for biomass use in dynamic and seasonal markets

The planning of production capacity has been extensively discussed in the literature. Seasonal demand of products or seasonal availability of input materials can make the problem even more challenging, due to a constant need for capacity adjustments. For example, the energetic or industrial use of biomass has several distinct characteristics in contrast to conventional chemical processes, such as a time dependent availability of raw materials. Therefore, suitable planning tools are required that take into account the dynamics of the production system (for example, by following the seasons and the yearly changes). Thus a recently proposed heuristic approach for aggregate production planning when facing a seasonal demand is analysed. This method is inspired by the graphical pinch analysis from chemical engineering; it is first illustrated with data from a bicycle company facing seasonal demand showing its plainness and some limitations. Then the transfer to situations with seasonal supplies of input materials is presented, as for biomass use in dynamic and seasonal markets. Using these applications, the simple heuristic, its limits and its benefits are put up for discussion.

Moderated Decision Support and Countermeasure Planning for Off-Site Emergency Management

Emergency situations, both man-made and natural, can vary substantially, however, they do share the characteristic of sudden onset and the necessity for a coherent and effective emergency management. In the event of a nuclear or radiological accident in Europe, the real-time on-line decision support system RODOS provides support from the early phase through to the medium and long-term phases.