CHEMICAL PRODUCT DESIGN

1. Commodity chemicals

- Large quantities

- Usually produced in continues process

• No differences properties between a commodity chemicals produced by different company

• The way to compete between the company :

To have lower ancillary costs

2. Specialty chemicals, the pioneer for commodity

- Smaller quantities

- Usually using batch process for production

Go for design of chemical product design

According to Cussler and Moggridge, it has four steps :

1. Needs, identification of a need for a product.

2. Ideas, searching for the best product design

3. Selection, screening the ideas for those believed to be the best.

4. Manufacture, determining how to manufacture the product in sufficient quantities.

Table 1. Comparison of product design strategies

STRATEGIES FOR CHEMICAL PRODUCT DESIGN

Strategy Cussler and Moggridge

Dym and Little Ulrich and Eppinger

Steps Needs Ideas Selection Manufacture

Need Problem definition Conceptual design Preliminary design Detailed design Design communication Final design

Identify customer needs Establish target specifications Generate product concepts Select product concepts Test product concepts Set final specifications Plan downstream development

Needs

- A new chemical product is sought in response to a need, from individual customers, groups or society

Ideas

- The generation of ideas is tantamount to brainstorming

- Idea can be sought from a variety of sources;

- Members of the product development team

- Potential customers

- Published literatures

Selection

- It is necessary to screen the ideas and select a few for more investigations

- Scientific principles can be applied

- There are more quantitative methods for screening alternatives;

Concept screening and concept scoring

Concept screening

• A selection matrix is prepared by listing a set of criteria to be used to evaluate the alternatives

• One alternative is chosen as reference alternative; ex.: industry standard

• All criteria for reference standard are assigned a value of zero

• The criteria for other alternatives are assigned values of :

+ meaning “better than”

Zero, meaning “same as”

- Meaning “worse than”

Criterion Alternative

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1 2 3 4 5

+ 0 + 0 0

- + 0 0 -

0 + 0 - +

+ 0 0 0 -

0 0 0 0 0

+ 0 + - 0

0 + + + -

- 0 - 0 +

0 + 0 0 -

Total Score 2 -1 1 0 0 1 2 -1 0

Rank 1 8 3 5 5 3 1 8 5

Concept scoring

• Using the same matrix as concept screening, but only on those alternatives that have survived

• The reference alternative is chosen

• Each criterion is assigned a relative weight and assigned a value from 1 to 5

1, means “much worse than reference”

2, means “worse than”

3, means “same as”

4, means “better than”

5, means “much better than”

Criterion Weight Alternative

1 2 3 4

1 2 3 4 5

25 % 5 %

15 % 35 % 20 %

5 3 5 3 3

3 4 3 1 4

4 3 5 2 3

3 4 5 5 1

Total Score 3.8 2.55 3.20 3.65

Rank 1 3 4 2

Manufacture

- The detail of chemical product design:

- Determining whether the product can be manufactured

- Developing detail product specifications

- How product to be manufactured

- Estimating the cost of manufacturing

- It also includes sample or prototype testing

Batch Processing

- The process operations are often employed for specialty chemical products

Economic Considerations

- The sale price is determined by the price competitors charge for the same chemical

- The law supply and demand does affect the price

- The initial price of a new product usually reflects the value of its uniqueness