Water Conservation in SMEs through GP

1. Water Conservation in SMEs through GP Dr. Suporn Koottatep Department of Environmental Engineering Faculty of Engineering, Chiang Mai University Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand E-mail: suporn@chiangmai.ac.th

2. Importance of Water in the Manufacturing Processes Water Use in Manufacturers as: • Primary products: beverages, water related drinks, canning etc. • Means to obtain products, washing process, cleaning operation, heat treatment, cooling operation etc.

3. Wastewater generated from manufacturing process • High amounts of wastewater with low pollutant loads. • Low amounts of wastewater with high pollutant loads. • High amounts and high pollutant load from their processes.

4. Lack of water conservation policy in SMEs • Water is considered cheap. • Some washing process and cooling water do not need treated water. • Without environmental regulations or weak enforcement

5. Wastewater Generated in the Selected Factories

6. Wastewater Generated in the Selected Factories (Cont.)

7. Water Conservation through GP • Water conservation in large scale factories was normally taken into consideration during the planning and design stage. • SMEs are neither equipped with new technology, nor properly planned during the design stage, water conservation seems to be a difficult task for them.

8. GP methodology for implementation in manufacturing organization. • Getting started • Planning • Generation & Evaluation of GP options • Implementation of GP Options • Monitoring and Review • Sustaining GP

9. Water consumption monitoring • Water meters installation • Direct measurement like stop watch and volumetric flask. • Direct measurement in the tanks (containers) • Spillages may be measured by using containers shaped like pans or other specific shapes. • In some areas, weir notch could be a good method to measure wastewater flow instead of water used.

10. Level of monitoring there are 4 levels of monitoring in industries 1.Plant level this will show the overall input and overall output of the plant itself 2. Department level or process levelin many SMEs,, we may need to dig deeper into areas, departments or processes to obtain information on water use. 3. Sub-department level that will need to go further in each process for clarification of water used. 4. Machine level In each process, some particular machines may have a greater and more significant water consumption than other machines.

11. 1. Plant Level From General Input Plant Output 2. Department Level Storage Process 1 Process 2 Offices 3. Sub-Process Level Washing Canning Sterilizing Storage 4. Machine Level To Specific Washing Machine 1 Machine 2 Tank 3

12. GP options for water conservation With proper information obtained from GP methodology, options for water conservation could be identified. The following are few examples of GP options for water conservation.

13. Examples of GP options for water conservation in food industry sector

14. Examples of GP options for water conservation in food industry sector (Cont)

15. Examples of GP options for water conservation in food industry sector(Cont)

16. Case study of Food Industry Water conservation from food industry sector in northern Thailand is as shown in table. Significant amount of wastewater reduction could be obtained through GP implementation.

17. Wastewater reduction through GP

18. Wastewater reduction through GP ( Cont )

19. Wastewater reduction through GP ( Cont )

20. In some cases, attempting in water conservation might give other benefit for factory. In a demonstration project of a ginger factory in Thailand, water monitoring in the factory is as shown in table

21. Water use and its characteristics of each process.

22. Water use and its characteristics of each process.( Cont )

23. Major use of water was from fresh ginger washing and floor washing. (460 cubic meters per day) • Other uses combined were about 80 cubic meters per day • The main cause of using high wash water was that the raw ginger contain too high soil content. (12.11%) • In the brainstorming , the suppliers should be instructed to reduce soil content in raw materials.

24. To apply the greening the suppliers, the factory divided the suppliers into 3 groups. Group 1 : the control group, the suppliers should deliver raw ginger that have the soil content < 10% this group was neither given any awareness nor incentive programs.

25. Group 2 : this group would be given a series of awareness program, how the quality of raw ginger would effect the water use. The meeting was called four times to convince the suppliers to agree to co-operate with the factory Group 3 : the group that would be offered the incentive program. Those who delivered raw materials with soil content less than 8%, the purchasing price will be 0.10 Baht per kg higher than market price. Those with soil content less than 5%, the price will be 0.20 Baht higher per kg.

26. After the greening the suppliers program was monitoring Soil contents in raw materials in first group group 2 and 3 were 12.11 % , 10.76 and 9.01 respectively. With the awareness program the average value of soil content did not meet the factory’s requirement (10%). However, the soil content was reduced by 1.35%. Similarly to the incentive group, the average soil content was not lower than the incentive level (8% and 5%). The reduction obtained was about 3.10 %.

27. Soil contents of each group

28. The comparison of samples that met the required standard is as shown in table. For the aware ness group, about 48% of suppliers were still sending raw materials higher than the required specification. Fifty two percent could meet the requirement. About 2% of this group could reach the incentive levels. In the third group, about 17% of the suppliers still did not meet the specification requirement. Only 26 % of the supplier met the incentive requirement. However more than 80% of this group could deliver raw materials with less than 10% of soil content.

29. Number of soil contents according to the required specification.

30. Production information before and after implementation is as shown in table . Raw ginger purchased during the year 1999 was 4,232 tons while in the year 2000 it was 4,610 tons. The amounts of soil in raw materials were 480 tons and 414 tons respectively. Percent soil contents was reduced from 11.37% to 8.95%. Products increased from 57,695 cases to 71,836 cases. Groundwater used was reduced from 5,524m3 to 4,439m3 or equivalent to 19.63% reduction. Electricity consumption was reduced from 131,581 kWh to 121,287 kWh or equivalent to 7.82 reduction. It could be easily seen that with GP implementation, production could be increased and raw materials and energy consumptions could be reduced.

31. Production Information Before and After GP Implementation

32. Production Information Before and After GP Implementation ( Cont )

33. Financial monitoring and evaluation was performed and shown in table . The total expenses before and after were 144.814 US$ and 163,786 US$ respectively. Compare to the products, expenses per case would be 2.51 US$ and 2.28 US$ respectively. The saving cost of 0.23 US$ per case was obtained in the year 2000. Compare to the number of production at 71,836 cases. The saving of expenses would be 16,522.28 US$.

34. Financial Monitoring and Evaluation

35. Financial Monitoring and Evaluation ( Cont )

36. The investment on GP implementation was as shown in table . It could be concluded that he benefit from the lower operating cost were about 11,686.96 US$.

37. Expense for GP Implementation

38. Summary Water conservation could be obtained from GP implementation in SMEs. Water may be considered as cheap resources but without proper management it could turn to an expensive resources in the manufacturing process. With proper monitoring program, water could be effectively utilized and the SMEs would in turn obtaining benefits from GP implementation.