(487a) A PhD’s Perspective on Driving Operational Excellence in a Manufacturing Environment

The manufacture of chlorine and caustic soda, vinyl chloride monomer, and polyvinyl chloride involves handling highly hazardous chemicals. Operational Excellence is essential in helping a facility or a company reduce safety and environmental incidents, improve reliability and product quality, and reduce overall manufacturing costs. A brief review of Chloro-Vinyls technology will be included in the presentation. The general principles, systems and tools for sustainable Operational Excellence in a manufacturing environment, including how to integrate R&D resources into the Operational Excellence process, will be covered. A number of “Best Practices,” specific to commodity chemical manufacturing but broadly applicable to any industry, will be highlighted. Past incidents where Operational Excellence would have prevented the incident will be woven into the presentation.