Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Before the building of production plants, a detailed planning in view of techniques as well as process is performed in the task of factory and production planning. Production planning under environmental aspects further influences the technical realization of production plants. An Integration of environmental information into a tool for planning production processes allows the combination of both points of view. In this connection, the generation of substances causing environmental hazards during production can be uncovered even before building an industrial plant.

Actions concerning the protection of employees and environment can early be considered in this way. A later high-cost conversion of a plant is avoidable. The presented concept describes the potential of the integration of both points of view. Moreover, the realization of a prototype evaluation is planned in connection with a case study.

In environmental ecosystem research, there is a trend towards sharing research sites infrastructure among project partners when carrying out individual or common projects. As a result a growing number of so-called research platforms are established. In order to take advantage of most of the potential synergies between project partners an adequate ICT infrastructure must be provided. This paper describes an ICT application which fully automates the workflow from measuring parameters in remote gauging stations up to storing validated time-series in a database. The main focus is on designing an appropriate database, but issues of software design and necessary standardization are also included.

Companies often employ independent management systems for quality, environment as well as work protection and safety. Since these systems are accordingly oriented to the same target group in companies and possess an identical structure for the most part, it is possible to integrate these into a single holistic system. The complexity of those connected via these measures may thereby be reduced, thus such a system may be realized as an intranet solution. Via this web basis, the possibility is thus opened of integrating powerful features such as document management, science management, portal construction and authorization concepts with their capabilities into integrated management systems. Thus users are given the chance of working efficiently and in goal-oriented manner upon applying management systems, thereby in turn leading to an increase in both the economic as well as the ecological effects by realizing these systems.

Corporate environmental protection has developed into an elementary building block of corporate policy in recent years and has now become necessity and opportunity for companies. It is not longer a question of simply protecting the environment. It is increasingly becoming a matter of social and economic aspects as well, of companies’ global responsibility for future generations; to put it briefly, a matter of sustainable development.

Against this background, companies have to meet two sets of demands. They have to satisfy the ecological and economic efficiency of the products and production processes. In addition to this, they contribute towards conserving resources.

In order for an environmentally oriented management to be able to gain influence in time, problems and mistakes must be recognized quickly. However, it is problematic that the variety and complexity of the existing environmental data and information are relatively high. To the recording, analysis and treatment of these data and information, efficient and extensive information systems have an essential importance.

Corporate environmental management information system (CEMIS) as an organizationally technical system offers the possibility of systematically covering, analyzing, processing and appraising as well as to archiving environmentally relevant information [cp. Page and Hilty 1995]. These information systems support strategic and operative management with planning, control and transaction of environmental-issue measures [].

The key obstacle to environmental management information systems (EMIS) is how to efficiently integrate them into enterprise application environments. While there is considerable work on technical aspects of the problem, there are few suggestions of how to solve the problem on the conceptual level, in particular with dynamic business environments, mass customization and flexible manufacturing systems in mind. In this contribution, the Petri net theory is applied as an innovative conceptualization for providing transformation capabilities between widely-used enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and material flow oriented EMIS.

Environmental management is becoming a commodity. Nonetheless it is characterized by stringent operative processes and a missing strategic integration. The strategic integration is only achievable if necessary information is quickly available and is of high quality. Hence a paradigm shift away from operative processes pursued by employees to automation is necessary. Therefore it is necessary to include environmental management in the IT planning processes to foster an integrated information systems architecture. An integrated approach supports an enhanced legal compliance and the identification of cost optimization potentials.

Nowadays, Environmental Management Information Systems are not integrated into business information systems, in particular ERP-Systems. The transition to a completed integration is neither done nor on the horizon. On the first view, this is somehow astonishing. A closer look at the basic data of Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II) and material flow management, for example, shows that there are quite clear similarities in data structures. In principle, bills of materials, operation plans and production orders contain exactly the data, which are useful for the design of material flow networks. Material transformations are represented through operation plans and input/output equations can be derived from bills of materials. And indeed it is possible in practice to generate material flow networks from MRP II data. Therefore, in this paper current approaches for the integration of material flow management systems and manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) and control will be presented.

The principals of spatial inventory of greenhouse gases on regional level which are based on IPCC methodologies and digital maps are considered. Mathematical models for spatial inventory using elementary plots are proposed. A geoinformation approach for creation of thematic maps of greenhouse gas emissions in MapInfo format is developed. The mechanism is illustrated on example of Energy sector of Lviv Region of Ukraine.

The last decades have seen a movement of production to less economically developed countries. These countries often don’t meet Western social and environmental standards. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have challenged poor conditions such as child labor, discrimination or environmental pollution caused by suppliers. Purchasers are criticized in the public realm, which leads to damage to their reputation [; ]. Nike, Dole Foods and GM have experienced such campaigns []. Focal companies with direct contact to the end customer and big labels are most vulnerable to this strategy. A loss of reputation may weaken their ability to compete and result in decreasing sales volume [].

In this contribution the emerging body of Industrial Ecology theory is organized in a unifying architecture. This basic architecture is illustrated in the form of a pyramid and built upon four basic layers (I–IV) or contexts respectively: (I) context of statements, (II) context of phenomena, (III) context of instruments, and (IV) context of basics. The architecture has its methodological basis in tools of philosophy. It is particularly based on a framework used in epistemology. This generic framework is further conceptualized through a document analysis identifying certain issues that are prototypical for the Industrial Ecology community and literature. Due to its solid structure, the basic architecture is proposed for Industrial Ecology education and communication what is distinctive for the field.