Integrated manufacturing logistics: byproducts can be critical

Production operations can usefully be partitioned into discrete manufacturing and processing operations. Discrete manufacturing plants produce products such as automobiles, airplanes, refrigerators, toasters, computers, and such `discrete´ products often have quite large work-forces relative to plants such as refineries, distillers, and chemical plants. Processing operations systems produce gasoline, paint, beer, ice cream, and chemicals. Processing operations can then be classified as `continuous´, `batch´, and `hybrid´ (batch and continuous). Many process operations systems are both capital intensive and use relatively low manpower. Process systems often have a lot of expensive equipment; refineries and chemical plants have a lot of large expensive equipment and control systems. We discuss a situation where the production process is a solvent based operation where the yields can be in the 5% range. The reason for this is that the ratio of solvent to product ranges from 1:1 up to 20:1. This can result in some unusual logistical problems