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

STRATEGIES FOR 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

Strategy Steps Cussler and Moggridge Needs Ideas Selection Manufacture Dym and Little Need Problem definition Conceptual design Preliminary design Detailed design Design communication Final design Ulrich and Eppinger 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 1 2 3 4 5
Total Score Rank

2 + 0 0 -1 8

3 0 + 0 +
1 3

4 + 0 0 0 0 5

5 0 0 0 0 0
0 5

6 + 0 + 0
1 3

7 0 + + + 2 1

8 0 0 +
-1 8

9 0 + 0 0 0 5

+ 0 + 0 0
2 1

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 1 1 2 3 4 5 Total Score Rank 25 % 5% 15 % 35 % 20 % 5 3 5 3 3 3.8 1 Alternative 2 3 4 3 1 4 2.55 3 3 4 3 5 2 3 3.20 4 4 3 4 5 5 1 3.65 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