On
Asst. Professor
NITIE, Mumbai
Contents
Certificates
Acknowledgements
Executive Summary
1. Introduction
2. Project Scope
2.1. Project Title
2.2 Need for Project
2.3 Project Overview
2.4 Scope
2.5 Deliverables
3. Literature Review
4. Methodology
4.1 Understanding
4.2 Research & Development
4.3 Production
4.4 Earlier Attempt
4.5 Case Study Industry to focus
4.5.1 Few Facts
4.5.2 Research Paper
4.5.3 Silica Applications
4.5.4 Maharashtra Limitless Possibilities
4.5.5 Two ways to approach
4.5.6 Conclusion
5. Data Collection and Execution
5.1 New Customers
5.2 Observations
5.3 Integrating the supply chain
5.3.1 Pareto Analysis
5.3.2 AHP(Analytic hierarchy process)
5.3.3 Relation Diagram
5.3.4 Tree Diagram
6. Conclusion & Scope for future work
6.1 Conclusion
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List of Illustrations
Tables
Table 1: Timeline of Events
Table 2: Infrastructure
Table 3: Fruit Zone of Maharashtra
Table 4: Normalized Cost
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Figures
Figure 1: Customers
Figure 2: Business Overview
Figure 3: Silica & Types
Figure 4: Pareto Chart
Figure 5: Pairwise Matrix
Figure 6: Tree Diagram of Customer Assessment
Figure 7: Relation Diagram
Figure 8: Tree Chart
This is to certify that Prashant Sharma, student of PGDIE, Batch No. 43 has
successfully completed the project titled Research and Development of mechanism to
dispose off SiO2 (100 MT / Month) through Sale / Alternate product development / reduction
in generation with Positive Realization in Environment friendly and Statutory compliant way
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Mukundan R
Asst Professor
NITIE, Mumbai
Certificate of Originality
This is to certify that the project entitled Research and Development of mechanism to
dispose off SiO2 (100 MT / Month) through Sale / Alternate product development / reduction
in generation with Positive Realisation in Environment friendly and Statutory compliant way
and integrate it with existing supply chain has been carried out by me at Sterlite
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Prashant Sharma
Roll No.: 62
PGDIE (Batch of 2013-15)
NITIE, Mumbai
Acknowledgement
A novice cannot do great tasks. Many great people contribute to completion of his work
directly or indirectly
Words fail me to express my sincerest gratitude to Mr. Pankaj Priyadarshi, CCO,
Sterlite Technologies Ltd. for providing me with the opportunity to be a part of this
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Prashant Sharma
Roll 62, PGDIE
NITIE Mumbai
Executive Summary
This project work is done to solve the very crucial and live problem of unsold and loss
making disposal of by-product Silica in Aurangabad plant of Sterlite Technologies Limited.
Presently, 100 MT of Silica is produced monthly with negligible takers which results in loss
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Chapter 1
Introduction
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Chapter - 2
PROJECT SCOPE
2.1 Project title
Research and Development of mechanism to dispose off SiO2 (100 MT / Month)
through Sale / Alternate product development / reduction in generation with Positive
Realization in Environment friendly and Statutory compliant way and integrate it with
existing supply chain
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Core:
GeCl4 + 2H2 + O2 (heat) GeO2 + 4HCl
Cladding:
SiCl4 + 2H2 + O2 (heat) SiO2 + 4HCl
Then, Silica so produced is allowed to deposit on a rod and drawn into fibers at an
elevated temperature by an automatic and highly sophisticated mechanism. Special care is
taken to ensure the quality of the fibers.
Not every silica produced is deposited, some escape which is then stored in jumbo
bags. This is highly pure Silica which may be used in various industries but not in high grade
Optical fibers due to quality concerns. Not only this, Silica so collected has to be disposed as
waste which incurs extra cost to company.
This project work is an attempt to develop a mechanism to dispose this Silica and
integrate it with existing supply chain.
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and dumped which incurs cost to the company. The problem lies on the fact that there is no or
minimal taker of silica being generated here. This is not the first attempt to solve this
problem. Earlier also few steps were taken and some projects had been undertaken but there is
still a large gap which this project work aims to fill. There needs to be an integrated and
holistic view of the root cause and a feasible solution of the same.
Few things need to be understood well before analyzing the ways this by-product can be
disposed
1) Environmental Issue As a good corporate citizen, Sterlite has always been respecting
and concerned about the environment and cherish the gift of nature. In consistency
with the above philosophy, it always tries to establish harmony with nature. Disposal
of silica should not hinder the health of our environment and adversely affect the
society as a whole. So, every precautions and guidelines are followed as per statutory
requirements. The chemical and physical characteristics of Silica are detailed in
MSDS (Material Safety and Data Sheet) which also provides the information about
possible hazards and its remedies.
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2.4 Scope
This project is actually multi-dimensional which includes fields like Supply Chain, marketing,
new product development and integration of these. That is the reason , it had to be approached
from three different perspectives which are explained later. The aim of the work is to integrate
every aspect of the product, right from its development and production to its
marketing and sales through an efficient supply chain. It gave me freedom to think in any
direction and interact with different departments and to develop an all-new perspective.
Followings are three modes which are to be considered:
1) Development of a mechanism to dispose SiO2 through saleThis is but natural to look for takers of the given bye-product which cant be used for
in-house production. But, there are bigger issues while doing it practically. The
approach should include studying the customers requirement and looking for the most
appropriate match not only in profitable way but also considering the constraints
involved with logistics and supply chain.
2) Product Development to meet market specifications
The bye-product which we are dealing with may not be most suitable input in other
industries. This generates the scope of developing and matching the specification of
Silica with the requirement of customers. This may include purifying or adding
additives for some special feature as desired by customer in the product.
3) Reduction in production of SiO2This includes any possibility of reducing the production of bye-product at the first
place. Since the sole reason of accumulation of bye product in this case is actually due
to the fact that not all Silica gets sticked to the rod and escapes. Though, plant is
highly automated, there may be some scope to increase the efficiency of this process.
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2.5 Deliverables
Chapter - 3
Literature Review
This project work includes two things, firstly Silica (bye-product) and secondly
Supply Chain to dispose it. There are many inputs given in literature regarding silica and
its various forms and uses. Few management tools related to supply chain are also
available for assessing customers and integrating the supply chain with disposal of byeproduct. These two aspects are discussed separately underneath:
SilicaSilica, also known as Silicon Dioxide is an oxide of element silica with chemical formula
SiO2. It has been known since very long. It is most commonly found in form of
quartz, and also in body of living organisms. Silica is one of the most complex and most
abundant families of materials, existing both as several minerals and being produced
synthetically. Few form of Silica are fused quartz, crystal, fumed silica, silica gel,
and aerogels. It has a wide range of application across many industries from solar panel to
pharmaceuticals.
It is commonly extracted by mining but is also produced or generated as bye-product in
few industrial processes. For instance, it is generated in bulk as bye-product in the
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Silicon and oxygen are the two most abundant elements in the earths crust. Silica
is commonly found in nature as sand. Silica exists in many different forms that can
be crystalline as well as non-crystalline (amorphous)
Silica
Synthetic Amorphous
Amorphous
Crystalline
Crystobalite
Surface Modified
Thermal
Quartz
Wet
Pyrogenic
Tridymite
Silica Gel
Electric Arc
Plasma
Precipitated
By-Product
Natural
Diatomaceous
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Fused
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Calcined
Flux-calcined
Microsilica
Crystalline silica is hard, chemically inert and has a high melting point. These are
valued/important properties in various industrial uses.
Quartz is the most common form of crystalline silica and is the second most common
mineral on the earths surface. It is found in almost every type of rock i.e. igneous,
metamorphic and sedimentary. Since it is so abundant, quartz is present in nearly all
mining operations.
Cristobalite is scarce in nature. Some volcanic rocks and meteorites may contain small
amounts of it. Cristobalite may also form when quartz is heated at high temperatures
starting at 450C. This is especially true during production and use of refractory materials
and/or during calcination of silica (between 800 and 1110C).
As a result, there is a likelihood of exposure to cristobalite in occupational settings.
Tridymite is also a scarce mineral that is only found in nature in volcanic rocks and
meteorites. Tridymite, however, differs from cristobalite in that it is not stable during
quartz and refractory materials heating processes at conventional process temperatures. As
a result, exposures are very unlikely to occur in occupational or other settings.
The respirable dust fraction corresponds to the proportion of an airborne particle,
which penetrates to the pulmonary alveolar region of the lungs.
Respirable crystalline silica is the respirable dust fraction of crystalline silica which
enters the body by inhalation. This term applies to workplace atmospheres.
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additive. There are dozens of industries procuring suitable Silica as raw material. Some
important names are as under
Adhesive
Ceramic
Cement
Glass
Marble
Paints
Pesticide
Pharmaceutical
Porcelain..
and many more.
Supply Chain
As per standard definition, A supply chain is a system of organizations, people,
activities, information, and resources involved in moving a product or service
from supplier to customer. Supply chain activities transform natural resources, raw
materials, and components into a finished product that is delivered to the end customer.
Just like B2C marketing, C2C must also have a sophisticated and agile supply chain to get
the desired level of service which is very crucial when one business interacts with other.
To make the whole supply chain profitable, integration of constituting parties seem to be
the key. Strategic decisions pertaining to each level of supply chain need to be taken with
sound management aptitude using management tools available in literature.
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Few analyses are always required to establish the profitability of the whole chain.
With respect to this project, some tools and techniques have been used to analyze and
justify the scope to sale the excess Silica to other Business.
Question is not only disposal of a by-product but it needs to be done in a sustainable
and profitable way.
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can use concrete data about the elements, but they typically use
their judgments about the elements' relative meaning and importance.
Goal
Criterion 1
Alternativ
e1
Criterion 2
Aternative
Aternative
Aternative
Criterion 3
Aternative
1
2 A Simple AHP1hierarchy with2 2 alternatives and 3 criteria
It is the essence of the AHP that human judgments, and not just the underlying
information, can be used in performing the evaluations.
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Aternative
2
The AHP converts these evaluations to numerical values that can be processed and
compared over the entire range of the problem. A numerical weight or priority is derived for
each element of the hierarchy, allowing diverse and often incommensurable elements to be
compared to one another in a rational and consistent way. This capability distinguishes the
AHP from other decision making techniques.
In the final step of the process, numerical priorities are calculated for each of the
decision alternatives. These numbers represent the alternatives' relative ability to achieve the
decision goal, so they allow a straightforward consideration of the various courses of action.
Parato Analysis It is a very effective tool for prioritizing things and thus, help in focusing
on the major and more crucial causes of a problem. This helps the managers to put lesser
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energy to have more gain. It is a formal technique useful where many possible courses of
action are competing for attention. In essence, the problem-solver estimates the benefit
delivered by each action, then selects a number of the most effective actions that deliver a
total benefit reasonably close to the maximal possible one.
Pareto analysis is a creative way of looking at causes of problems because it helps
stimulate thinking and organize thoughts. Analysis can be used to identify the root causes of
the problems. While it is common to refer to pareto as "80/20" rule, under the assumption
that, in all situations, 20% of causes determine 80% of problems, this ratio is merely a
convenient rule of thumb and is not nor should it be considered immutable law of nature.
The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule,[1] the law of the vital few, and
the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come
from 20% of the causes.
Pareto charts can be used,
During quality control to analyze the causes of defects and failures
When you want to focus your resources on few important items from a large list of
possibilities
To tell the story that attacking problem A might be better than solving problem C,
D and F
Pareto analysis has great practical uses for almost anyone in a managerial role.It is
one of the 7 QC tools and the graph prepared by it is called Pareto chart which
facilitates easy understanding and quick decision making.
This tool can also be used in our project to understand the relative importance of
new and existing customers.This will allow the higher management to better
understand the level of resources and time to be allotted to each of the
customers.The future perspective would be to select and retain customers out of
many options.
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Tree Diagram It is one of the new 7 QC tools widely used in decision making. A tree
diagram is often used to discover the steps needed to solve a given problem. It always the
user(s) to gain further insight into the problem and helps the team focus on specific tasks to
complement the tasks at hand to solve the problem.
The purpose of the tree diagram is to explore ways and means to achieve an objective,
develop a list of alternate means to reach the desired situation in a sequential order and to
present them in a visual form. The diagram can be made in 2 forms Tree or Cascade. It
allows the managers to have the concise and compact view of the problem. The most
important application of the tree diagram is for devising solutions for problems. It helps one
to develop a systematic step by step strategy to achieve an objective. It is also useful in
monitoring the implementation of solutions by taking care of accomplishment of means at
different levels.
The steps in the procedure to develop a tree diagram are :
Identify a high priority problem that needs to be solved at the earliest.
Prepare an objective statement describing the desired situation or the target solution.
Decide the appropriate form of the diagram - cascade or tree as well as direction of
flow. Place the target solution in the dark rectangle.
Identify the primary means to achieve the objective. Arrange them in an appropriate
order keeping in mind the likely interrelations between them and place them in
rectangles at the first level.
For each of the primary means, identify secondary means which would be necessary to
attain those means. Arrange them in next level boxes.
Identify tertiary means required to attain each of the secondary means and place them
in a proper order in the next level boxes.
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Continue the process till the group feels that the end of the
line has been reached.
Reach a consensus on the relative importance of the last level means to priorities
action.
Lets take an instance of case of improving health in a village.
Improving Health Standards in Village- Tree Diagram Cascade form (Example)
Improve
Open Clinic
Health
Medical Degree
Medical
College
Pass Entrance
Expert Coaching
Organize Fund
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Chapter - 4
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Methodology
This is the most crucial part of the project work which defines the approach and gave
me opportunity to understand the end to end functioning from production process to
supply chain. To have an integrated and holistic view to generate a feasible solution,
proper understanding was quite necessary which was achieved by step to step process as
described below:
4.1 Understanding
Before jumping into developing the supply chain of the product, it is very important to
have an in depth knowledge of what we are producing. This plant is fully integrated and
one of its kind in country which produces high performing optical fibers. It is very
important to understand that fibers are nothing but glass but of varying refractive index as
per requirement. The notable point here is that fibers are very sophisticated product and
needs extremely pure glass (99.9999%).
The principle in which it works is Total Internal Reflection. This phenomenon takes
place inside the core of the fiber. This fact makes it very crucial for the core to be virtually
out of any impurity. The clad which covers the fiber is not as critical and little less pure
glass may be employed but not less than 99.99 %(approx.) pure.
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Even the outer cladding cannot be made using impure silica. Moreover, there is no
possibility of using it in near future. This was the clear indication that I would have to find
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4.3 Production
In my quest to understand more about our bye product, I visited the Production
department where the mixture of bye products i.e. Silica and HCL is passed through a
scrubber which removes the acid and silica is stored in jumbo bags. On examining, I
found it to be snow white powder in appearance.
Had discussion with few people working there and got informed about some burning
issues regarding the bye-product silica
We dont have full specification, only few sample tests are available
There is no way to control quality
Test reports are not latest
On further query, understood the possibility of hindrance in our main product, if we
try to control the quality of bye product. This along with above three issues made it
even difficult to convince a third party to use it as input in their plants. The possibility
of after processing is discussed later after understanding the scope of improvement in
quality. Nevertheless, I got the test reports from them, two of them are shown below:
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This test report is pertaining to Jan, 2013 and the result is reasonably good with
99.65% silica and minimal quantity of other impurities.
But, if we look into the latest report of this year and critically analyze it, it is readily
visible that the Iron content has significantly increased up to more than 0.5% as shown in
second report in next page:
Fe2O3 = 0.50524%
This actually is an issue which reduces its applicability in industries.
Following are the points which I found while talking about my concern to production
people
After this, only the possibility of after processing was left. It is obvious to employ
magnetic separator for the purpose. Before that, I again visited the R&D center for further
insight and also searched online. The common conclusion was that if magnetic impurities
are relatively bigger then this method works else not.
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And, setting up new machinery would also incur extra cost. So, I decided to study the
specification of the requirements of different industries and mapped it with our product.
There are so many applications of silica in different industries as shown below:
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o Decrease Dusting
o Eliminate lumps
o Efficiently absorb liquids, fats, and oils for powdered food applications
o Decrease clogging and bridging during production
Silica Paints - It is one another sector which widely uses silica. It is used as
thickener and provides opacity to paint. Titanium dioxide is being used recently but
silica compound proves to be apt to extent TiO2 in white paint. Untreated precipitated
silica reduces the gloss of coatings. In solvent-based coatings, it also increases
viscosity for settling resistance. In clear coatings such as lacquer or varnish, it offers
exceptionally high clarity and transparency.
Animal feeding - Silica and silicates are used in animal health and nutrition
formulations as anti-caking and free-flow agents and as carriers for liquid to powder
conversions. Caking and lumping are few common problems which are generally
encountered during production, processing and storage of animal food. The affinity of
silica towards moisture makes it suitable to be used to as agent to convert liquid to
semi-solid.
Pesticide This is one of the most important uses of silica which shows high
promise and scope in future. The industry of pesticide is ever increasing and
demanding. India being an agricultural economy is the high consumer of pesticides. It
is the high time to conserve our environment. And that is the reason , non-toxic
pesticides are being promoted worldwide. Silica has emerged as very good alternative
to toxic and harmful pesticides and insecticides due to its inert nature. It kills insect
not chemically but physically. It makes the surface rough for insect and hurt them to
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Paper Silica is used as a thickening and suspending agent, to prevent set off and
picking, to heighten brilliance.
Above mentioned were few most important uses of silica but surely not limited to
them. We may think in direction of product development to make our product suitable
for above mention uses. Every industry has its own requirement with different crucial
parameters. But, one major flaw which pops up every now and then is the amount of
iron in the form of Fe2O3 in our silica. If we have a look at the specification of silica
which is produced by our new customer MLA group , same thing comes as outcome.
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They supply silica to different industries like paper, food, adhesives, paints etc. But,
their silica has not more than 0.3% iron while ours has about 0.5%.
This clearly indicates that we need to search for the most apt industry to focus for our
product. So, I have done a small case study with a sole view to search a market for our
product.
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UPL
Bayer Crop Science
Syngenta
Rallis India
BASF
Opportunity
Threat
Expansion of
contract farming
Existing Players
Growing Farmer
Awareness
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On enquiring them about the composition of this product so that we can sort out
whether any processing is required to use our silica as pesticide or not, the reply which I got is
quoted below:
Agrodust contains silicon dioxide, a mined product, with no added ingredients (any
impurities are from natural ground minerals). It is labeled as a powder, with a crystalline/
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4.5.6 Conclusion:
Pesticide industry promises a great market for our Silica.
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Chapter - 5
Data Collection and Execution
Ceremics
Glass
Cement
Pesticides
Pharma
Porcelain
Adhesive
Chemical
Paint
Marble
Solar Cell
After studying the above industries, I prepared the list of companies and contacts of
the responsible personnel of each. An excel file is prepared with approx. 350 companys
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specialize in various grades of silica used in rubber and non-rubber industries. A half kilogram
sample has been sent to them.
5.2 Observation
It is very interesting to see that above companies share same profile as manufacturer and
supplier of chemicals involved in B2B business. This signifies that the probability of
converting these types of customer is higher rather than directly approaching to silica using
firms.
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The cut-off line of 0.8 shows the range of 80-20 rule as per customers.
5.3.2 AHP (Analytic hierarchy process) This tool is used for customer assessment and to
rank them as per their net value. Revenue and proximity have been considered as criteria. And
respective rating of all the 6 existing customers has been done. The tree diagram is shown
below:
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Customer Assessment
0.5
0.5
Revenue
Proximity
0.33
0.2
0.2
0.2
0.33
0.33
0.33
0.11
0.11
0.11
0.11
0.11
Customers
Weight
0.07
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0.12
0.26
0.02
0.26
0.26
Similarly, we can get the rating on the basis of revenue with actual data. Our tree diagram
looks like this:
:
Figure 6 Tree diagram of Customer Assessment
Thereafter, a simple matrix multiplication will give the ranking of our customers on the basis
of proximity and revenue as shown:
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It must be noted that cost of serving the customers has not been considered. According
to literature, first benefit is determined and then ratio of it with cost is taken to come up with
Benefit/Cost ratio.
We will need to normalize the cost to get the weight age as shown in demo below:
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Now, the benefit-cost ratio can be calculated to come up with final weight age.
5.3.3 Relation Diagram It is one of the new 7 QC qualitative tools which has been used to
depict the interrelated causes pertaining to the problem of unsold Silica.
No Quality Control
No After-processing
Rusted Pipelines
Fe2O3>0.5%
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Unsold Silica
5.3.4 Tree Diagram This new quality tool gives a systematic approach to solve a defined
problem. The causes as shown in the relation diagram above need to be solved strategically
following the well-defined path. An attempt has been made by me, based on my
understanding in last two month to come up with the steps to solve this silica problem. It is
shown in next page:
After-Processing
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Install Machine
Iron Removing
Improve Quality
Sell Silica
Integrated Approach
Cross-Functional Team
Higher Management
Approval
Chapter - 6
Conclusion and Scope for Future Work
6.1 Conclusion
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Academic Contribution
Applied AHP and Pareto analysis
Usage of new 7 Quality Control tools like Relation and Tree Diagram
Excel models with numerous formulae were developed for assessment of the
customers
Professional Contribution
Initiated business talk with perspective customers
Coordinated and acted as SPOC between company and outside parties
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References
Research Paper:
Proc S Afr Sug Technol Ass (2006), SILICON USE FOR PEST CONTROL IN
AGRICULTURE LAING M D, GATARAYIHA M C and ADANDONON A , 278-279
Links:
http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/REDs/factsheets/4081fact.pdf
http://www.hubermaterials.com/products/silica-and-silicates.aspx
http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/degen.html
http://www.indiaprwire.com/pressrelease/agriculture/20131118267585.htm
http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/inerts.html
http://www.gardenguides.com/89104-organic-controls-fruit-tree-diseases.html
http://www.pestcontroldirect.co.uk/acatalog/Agrodust__1kg__silica___one_free_mask
.html
http://www.crystallinesilica.eu/content/what-respirable-crystalline-silica-rcs
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http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_01.htm
last accessed 11-10-2011
http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/09/02/pareto-charts/
http://www.productivity.in/knowledgebase/TQM/c.%20Tools%20and
%20Techniques/3.3%207%20New%20QC%20Tools/7%20New%20QC%20Tools.pdf
http://qualitytale.blogspot.in/2009/07/new-7-qc-tools-of-quality-tree-diagram.html
http://www.hubermaterials.com/products/silica-and-silicates.aspx
http://www.precipitatedsilica.net/applications.html
http://www.ficci.com/events/20563/add_docs/sectorbrief.pdf
http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---10649.htm
Appendices
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