Wagner / Enzler Material Flow Management

Improving Cost Efficiency and Environmental Performance
1. Auflage 2005
ISBN: 978-3-7908-1665-5
Verlag: Physica
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 206 Seiten, eBook

Reihe: Sustainability and Innovation

Material flow management gets right to the core of industrial production and its environmental impact. Basically, material flows are invariably at the nucleus of industrial production. Ecological effects are initially caused by materials: consumption and entropy of scarce resources as well as emissions resulting from the production and use of products and consumer goods. It is only during recent years that the eco-efficient optimisation of these material flows, which aims at reducing costs while simultaneously de creasing environmental impact, has become an explicit objective of both practical and scientific activities and efforts. There has been a lot of discussion, but little has been done. This book provides an overview of the pertinent research and scientific projects conducted between 1999 and 2005 in co-operation with industrial companies; the projects were initiated and founded by the Bundesmin- teriumfur Bildung und Forschung (BMBF, Federal Ministry of Education and Research). This book illustrates the current diversity of existing operational approaches and thus also points out synergetic co-ordination options. It demonstrates the high, still unutilised potential for increasing the e- efficiency of material flows: the long since existing, but yet unused overlapping areas between cost reduction and simultaneous environmental relief by means of efficient material utilisation. The reason for this suboptimal material flow efficiency essentially lies in the currently still low transparency of cross-departmental or cross-company material flows (with regard to the flowing physical quantities and volumes - in detai- the commercial costs/ values and flow times).

Zielgruppe

Professional/practitioner

Autoren/Hrsg.

Wagner, Bernd

Enzler, Stefan

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Aspects of Material Flow Management.- Computer Aided Resource Efficiency Accounting.- Measuring Environmental Performance with EPM-KOMPAS Software Tool — Material Flow Analyses, Environmental Assessment and Success Control.- Integrated Controlling Based on Material and Energy Flow Analysis — A Case Study in Foundry Industries.- Environmental Accounting Instruments: Implementation & Continuous Use — Concepts for the Application of Input-Output Balance, Environmental Performance Indicators and Flow Cost Accounting.- Efficient Closure of Material and Component Loops — Substance Flow Oriented Supply Chain Management.- Developments in Material Flow Management: Outlook and Perspectives.

Leseproben

6 Environmental Accounting Instruments: Implementation & Continuous Use - Concepts for the Application of Input-Output Balance, Environmental Performance Indicators and Flow Cost Accounting (S.131)

Claus Lang-Koetz, Thomas Loew, Severin Beucker, Michael Steinfeldt, Uwe Horstmann, Till Sieghart
Claus Lang-Koetz, Institute for Human Factors and Technology Management (lAT), University of Stuttgart, Germany
E-mail: [e-mail]

Thomas Loew, Institute for Ecological Economy Research, Berlin/ Germany
E-Mail: [e-mail]

Severin Beucker, Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (lAO), Stuttgart/ Germany
E-Mail: [e-mail]

Michael Steinfeldt, Institute for Ecological Economy Research, Berlin/ Germany
Email: [e-mail]

Uwe Horstmann, Conti Temic Microelectronic GmbH, Niimberg/ Germany
Email: [e-mail]

Till Sieghart, Conti Temic Microelectronic GmbH, Niimberg/ Germany
E-Mail: [e-mail]

6.1 Introduction

Within the scope of the three-year research project INTUS, concepts were developed for facilitating the introduction of controlling tools into the internal environmental management systems of enterprises. The new concepts relate to the three key problems with which companies are faced when striving to optimise the internal provision of information in regards to environment-oriented management.

Areas to be considered here include

(i) the suitability of the various environmental accounting tools,

(ii) the provision of the tools by way of information technology, and

(iii) the organisational implementation during the introductory phase and in longterm utilisation.

6.2 Research Project INTUS

One of the classic challenges of controlling is the efficient provision of information at the right time, in an appropriate volume in regards to the task at hand and in a suitable format. Environmental accounting, being a sub-function of environmental management in corporate practice, is faced with this challenge as well.

Today, environmental accounting has access to a wide variety of tools. The most important of these include product life-cycle assessments, corporate input-output balances, environmental performance indicators, various environmental activity-based costing approaches as well as a multitude of ecological assessment methods.

The product life-cycle assessment approaches, which initially showed a quite significant amount of variation, have been unified in the meantime; the methodological fi*amework is described in four ISO standards (ISO 14040 to ISO 14043). In principle, it is known in which cases and with what software support a practical application of product life-cycle assessments and similar approaches is possible.

Up to now, the situation was different concerning tools for supporting production-related environmental management. In this area, corporate input-output balances, environmental performance indicators and flow cost accounting (a highly promising environmental cost management approach) have long since been recommended as particularly promising tools.

.