4.4 The Importance of Starting Early
63
4.4
The Importance of Starting Early
It is advantageous to employ integrated development as early as possible. As Fig. 4.3
illustrates and Heinzle and Hungerbühler (1997) explain, the freedom of design
decreases quickly during the development of a product or process. This means that
as much information as possible regarding design alternatives should be collected
as early as possible, and this knowledge should be systematically considered to
make informed decisions, despite time pressure and a potentially limited set of
initial data. The flexibility to make adjustments in the early stages of development
should be used to make decisions that provide benefits in the long term. Once,
for example, an entire production plant has been designed to produce a substance
requiring a specific production process, making additional changes to the chemical
structure of this substance will be a much more difficult and time-intensive task.
To overcome the challenge of efficiently integrating all of the relevant information
during development, it is important to:
• initially evaluate a broad variety of design variants
• always keep in mind the intended overall development process and its necessary
conditions when focusing on areas specific to an individual stage of development
• undertake an increasingly in-depth assessment of design variants that always
takes into account the three guiding principles as well as costs
• continuously collect information to develop a knowledge base that can support
decision making along the entire development path
• allow for people with different backgrounds (marketing, research & development, engineering, production, EHS, etc.) to communicate with one another in
flexible teams
• ensure good cross-flow of information between parallel development processes
Placing integrated development into the business perspective is a benefit for the
chemical industry. Considering the three guiding principles helps to strengthen a
company’s bottom line and to meet the responsibility that the company has to protect
human health and the environment. The next chapter begins Part II of this book,
which introduces the three key methods of LCA, risk assessment, and risk-benefit
dialogue.
63
4.4
The Importance of Starting Early
It is advantageous to employ integrated development as early as possible. As Fig. 4.3
illustrates and Heinzle and Hungerbühler (1997) explain, the freedom of design
decreases quickly during the development of a product or process. This means that
as much information as possible regarding design alternatives should be collected
as early as possible, and this knowledge should be systematically considered to
make informed decisions, despite time pressure and a potentially limited set of
initial data. The flexibility to make adjustments in the early stages of development
should be used to make decisions that provide benefits in the long term. Once,
for example, an entire production plant has been designed to produce a substance
requiring a specific production process, making additional changes to the chemical
structure of this substance will be a much more difficult and time-intensive task.
To overcome the challenge of efficiently integrating all of the relevant information
during development, it is important to:
• initially evaluate a broad variety of design variants
• always keep in mind the intended overall development process and its necessary
conditions when focusing on areas specific to an individual stage of development
• undertake an increasingly in-depth assessment of design variants that always
takes into account the three guiding principles as well as costs
• continuously collect information to develop a knowledge base that can support
decision making along the entire development path
• allow for people with different backgrounds (marketing, research & development, engineering, production, EHS, etc.) to communicate with one another in
flexible teams
• ensure good cross-flow of information between parallel development processes
Placing integrated development into the business perspective is a benefit for the
chemical industry. Considering the three guiding principles helps to strengthen a
company’s bottom line and to meet the responsibility that the company has to protect
human health and the environment. The next chapter begins Part II of this book,
which introduces the three key methods of LCA, risk assessment, and risk-benefit
dialogue.