Assessing and validating sustainability tools & metrics from the DoSym research programme at Weir Minerals Netherlands

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Assessing and validating sustainability tools & metrics

from the DoSym research programme at

Weir Minerals Netherlands

Master Thesis

By

J.C.F.M. Hack

University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business MSc Technology & Operations Management,

j.c.f.m.hack@student.rug.nl Student number: 1914618

Newcastle University Newcastle University Business School MSc Operations & Supply chain management

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | 3

Assessing and validating sustainability tools & metrics from the

DoSym research programme at Weir Minerals Netherlands

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Author

J.C.F.M. (Jeroen) Hack University of Groningen:

Master Technology and Operations Management Prof. dr. ir. J.C. (Hans) Wortmann

Dr. K. (Kristian) Peters Newcastle University

Master Operations and Supply Chain Management Dr. G. (Graeme) Heron

Weir Minerals Netherlands J.P. (Jan-Piet) Janssen

P. (Peter) Thissen Confidentiality

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | Acknowledgement 5

Acknowledgement

This is the final version of my thesis that is the end of a five and a half yearlong study period. I clearly remember when I started to live in Groningen in the year 2009 when still only nineteen years old. I entered a new period of my life and was very excited to start living on my own with many friends close by. I was looking forward to gain a lot of knowledge from the professional surroundings of a university and attain large personal development.

When the research topics for the master thesis were announced I was directly intrigued by the research project at Weir Minerals Netherlands. Moving to Venlo where Weir Minerals Netherlands is located felt like a logical step to complete my double degree programme. My colleagues in Venlo were very open and I have experienced a lot of cooperation and help from them in gathering the results of my research project.

First of all, I would like to thank Kristian Peters from the University of Groningen. I thank him for all the insightful meetings and discussion we have had. His passion for sustainable product development is contagious in a very positive manner. When I was stuck in my thinking a quick chat with Kristian always enabled me to move forward with the project again.

Secondly, I would like to thank Jan-Piet Janssen and Peter Thissen from Weir Minerals Netherlands. I thank Jan-Piet for continuously challenging me in the management of the project and securing that the research would provide WMNL with operable conclusions. I thank Peter for helping me understand the organisation, the products and applications that are involved. I also greatly appreciate the supervision by Hans Wortmann from the University of Groningen. His ability to keep the scope of the project in line with the requirements of the DoSym research programme was proven very helpful during the project.

Furthermore I would like to thank all my family, friends and girlfriend for all the mental support throughout this project.

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | Management Summary 7

Management Summary

The first objective of this research was to test and validate the big themes framework (BTF) and the Design for Environment Capabilities Maturity Model (DfE CMM) that are developed in the DoSym research programme. The second objective was to assess the sustainability performance at the case of this research, a discrete manufacturing company, Weir Minerals Netherlands (WMNL). The BTF was used for the first time and the DfE CMM was used for the third time. The models were adapted if necessary to the fit the characteristics of WMNL.

Big Themes Framework

The identified gap in literature is that there was no method that describes how to select the right product for analysis and there was no method that describes how to select the right assessment method that gathers information for the BTF. This research first discusses how to select a product that is suitable for analysis. The product selected is a ZPM-800 pump that is representative for many other products WMNL is producing. The second step is to select the right assessment method with the right depth of analysis using the assessment selection framework developed in this research. The NPR-CN/TS 16524:2013 assessment method is selected because of the balance between research objectives, product characteristics and availability of resources for this research. The assessment method shows that the manufacturing phase and the usage phase have the largest environmental impact for the analysed product. The information deducted from this analysis is used to fill in the BTF. The BTF shows that improvements are possible on the themes of materials, energy and hazardous materials for the ZPM-800 pump. A detailed overview of improvement project can be found in section 5.5. The NPR-CN/TS 16524:2013 was not able to provide information for all five big themes, the method lacked information about energy, water and emissions. Therefore it is suggested to find or developed an alternative method to assess environmental product performance for future use of the BTF.

Design for Environment Capabilities Maturity Model

Secondly, the DfE CMM model is used to assess the maturity level of WMNL. First of all the model is adapted to compensate for the low expected maturity level of WMNL, a gap found when performing explorative interviews about the DfE CMM at WMNL. The addition to the model is that management practices are split into practices with and without ecodesign considerations. This will enable organisations with a low level of maturity to gather relevant information about the capability level of their management practices. Sixteen respondents filled in the DfE CMM and the results of the analysis show that WMNL has a maturity level of one. WMNL should however be able to move towards a higher level of maturity relatively fast. This is mainly due to the presence of well-defined management practices without ecodesign and a lot of operational practices. Finally the DfE CMM model is improved for future use by analysing the difficulties experienced during this research. Also the group of respondents is analysed and this research proposes a group of seven respondents that should be able to provide valid results in future use of the DfE CMM.

Roadmap for improvement

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | Table of Contents 8

List of Tables

Table 1: Four sustainable system conditions ... 15

Table 2: Simplified sustainability decision-making framework (Peters et al. 2013) ... 16

Table 3: Product life cycle phases ... 16

Table 4: Sustainable system conditions in the BTF ... 17

Table 5: Assessment method objectives ... 18

Table 6: Assessment selection framework (Todd et al., 1999) additions marked with * ... 19

Table 7: Maturity level grid ... 21

Table 8: Description of reflective and regulative cycle phases ... 23

Table 9: Research design ... 24

Table 10: Company analysis interviewees ... 25

Table 11: Product analysis interviewees ... 25

Table 12: Explorative interviews DfE capability maturity model... 26

Table 13: Respondents for capability maturity model questionnaire ... 26

Table 14: Reliability and validity of the research ... 27

Table 15: Key figures of Weir Group divisions ... 28

Table 16: Pump selection criteria ... 31

Table 17: Product and application matrix ... 32

Table 18: Different customers of WMNL ... 33

Table 19: Product-group life-cycle characteristics WMNL ... 35

Table 20: Assessment methods objectives, Green for WMNL ... 37

Table 21: Assessment selection framework (Todd et al., 1999) Green for WMNL ... 37

Table 22: Suggested strategy improvements ... 39

Table 23: Big Themes Framework ... 41

Table 24: Maturity level grid ... 42

Table 25: Comparison between the different cases ... 43

Table 26: Response frequencies analysis: current (white) and ambition (grey) ... 46

Table 27: Comparison of quantitative and qualitative data ... 48

Table 28: Response patterns for grouped practices ... 49

Table 29: Group of recommended respondents... 49

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | List of Figures 11

List of Figures

Figure 1: Interaction regulative cycle on the reflective cycle Kerssen van Drongelen (2001) ... 23

Figure 2: Company organogram ... 29

Figure 3: Hierarchically ordered generic environmental scores ... 38

Figure 4: Current capability level of WMNL... 44

Figure 5: Ambition capability levels of WMNL ... 45

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | List of abbreviations 12

List of abbreviations

APEXS Annular pressure exchange system BMD Environmental service organisation BOM Bill of materials

CAPEX Capital expenditures

CSR Corporate Social Sustainability DfE Design for Environment CMM Capability Maturity Model

DHC Hydraulically driven piston pump with cone valves DHT Hydraulically driven piston pump with transfer tube ERP Enterprise resource planning

DoSym Development of Sustainability Metrics

FME Business association for technology intensive organisations GEHO “Gebroeders Holthuis” (Brand Name)

GRI Global Reporting Initiative HPGR High Pressure Grinding Rolls

IOP IPCR Innovation research program integral product creation and -realisation LCA Life Cycle Analysis

MT Management Team

NUBS Newcastle University Business School OPEX Operational expenditures

PD Positive Displacement

PI-QA Process Improvement and Quality Assurance RUG University of Groningen

SME Small Medium Enterprises

SPD Sustainable Product Development TI Technical Innovation

TS Total Solutions

TZP Crankshaft driven three-cylinder single-acting piston pump

TZPM Crankshaft driven three-cylinder single acting piston diaphragm pump UN United Nations

USP Unique selling point

WCED World Commission on Environment and Development WMNL Weir Minerals Netherlands

ZPM Crankshaft driven two-cylinder double acting piston diaphragm pump ZPR Crankshaft driven one or two cylinder double-acting piston pump

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | 1. Introduction 13

1. Introduction

The world is becoming more globally connected resulting in a rising wealth for the whole planet. This growing wealth generates an increasing demand for products. The production of these products requires raw materials and energy that cause pollution and resource depletion. The negative impacts from pollution and resource depletion are not unnoticed. The public and government are now more than ever aware of climate change, resource scarcity and environmental degradation (Bretschger & Smulders, 2012). Therefore organisations experience external pressures and incentives from the government and public to improve the sustainable capabilities. External incentives and pressures are customer demand for sustainable products and regulations or laws coming from governments. Alblas, Peters and Wortmann (2014) stated that external pressures and incentives are fuzzy or even absent. Organisations can also be internally triggered to improve their sustainability capability. Efforts in improving the sustainability capability of an organisation can result in cost savings, higher quality and developing a green or social image that can generate a competitive advantage (Haugh & Talwar, 2010; Willard, 2012). Rusinko (2010) states that sustainability offers an attractive proposition for organisations because it combines environmental concerns, manufacturing processes and product design activities. Those are all reasons for small medium enterprises (SMEs) and large multinational organisations to acquire knowledge about sustainability.

A lot of organisations however do not know how well they are performing on sustainability issues. In order to acquire knowledge about the current sustainability performance, companies require assessment or measurement tools. Sustainability assessment and measurement tools are becoming widely spread. These tools support decision-making and help anticipate the possible implications of current and proposed products, processes and projects (Pope, Annandale, & Morrison-Saunders, 2004). In the research project Development of Sustainability metrics (DoSym), two different assessment tools have been developed. First of all, Hoogerwerf (2013) created a Design for Environment Capabilities Maturity Model (DfE CMM) that is able to assess the sustainability of organisational processes. Secondly, Peters, Alblas and Wortmann (2013) designed the Big Themes Framework (BTF) with which a company is able to assess the sustainable performance of products. From these two tools the main research question is derived:

How viable are the two sustainability tools from the DoSym research programme, the DfE CMM and BTF, in a discrete manufacturing company?

In order to test the viability of the two sustainability tools from the DoSym programme a suitable case needs to be selected. Within the research programme Weir Minerals Netherlands (WMNL) is the selected case company as suitable case. WMNL is a discrete-manufacturing company operating as equipment supplier in the mining industry. The mining industry is struggling with sustainability in particular (Seagle, 2012; Broderick & Horwitz 2014), because mining is a “dirty” industry depleting nature’s resources and possibly harming the direct environment of a mine both ecologically and socially. The phrase “sustainable mining” appears to be a paradox, since mineral resources are finite. Minerals are considered to be non-renewable in human or biological time scales (Mudd, 2010). Therefore it is interesting to apply the sustainability assessment tools at a company that is producing equipment for the mining industry and struggling with sustainability issues. The assessment tools are applied at WMNL to answer the following question:

What is the current sustainability performance of WMNL?

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | 1. Introduction 14

1.1 DoSym research program

The ministry of economic affairs of the Netherlands is funding an innovation and research program for integral product creation and realisation (IOP IPCR). The development of sustainability metrics (DoSym) programme at the University of Groningen is one of the research projects within this overarching IOP IPCR program. The main objectives within this research program are;

 Come to grips with sustainable product development (SPD) in discrete manufacturing;  Develop a set of strategies, processes, methods, metrics and tools to support SPD;  Valorisation, training and dissemination.

The overall approach to achieve these objectives is to use interviews, key informants, master thesis projects, document studies and consortium workshops and meetings. The consortium exists of six discrete manufacturing companies in the Netherlands (DoSym, 2014); Weir Minerals Netherlands, Nefit, Neopost technologies, Eaton Industries Netherlands, SPX Process Equipment NL and Philips Consumer Lifestyle – Innovation Domestic Appliances.

This research is a master thesis project and part of the DoSym research programme. Researchers in the DoSym project are supervising this master thesis project and will use the data gathered in this research for their own research. Hence, the DoSym project is an important stakeholder in this research.

1.2 Research request from DoSym

Within the DoSym project two tools have developed that can assess sustainability at companies in the discrete manufacturing industry: (1) the BTF and (2) the DfE CMM. By applying, reflecting and modifying the two tools in practice they should become more expanded and more applicable for generalizable use at different discrete manufacturing companies. The BTF aims at assessing the sustainable performance of products, while the DfE CMM assesses the maturity of processes. The research request from DoSym is to test how viable the two tools are for assessing sustainability and critically investigate how they can be enhanced.

 How can the DoSym Big Theme Framework model (Peters et al., 2013) be enhanced for use at companies in the mining industry?

 How can the DoSym Design for Environment Capability Maturity Model (Hoogerwerf, 2013; Bouma, 2014) be enhanced for use at companies in the mining industry?

1.3 Weir Minerals Netherlands

WMNL is part of the DoSym research consortium. The company currently thinks that from a product design perspective there is not much progress to be made in the design of their pumps. This research intends to identify in what areas WMNL still can improve the sustainable performance of products. WMNL is currently looking for a way to make a distinctive value proposition towards customers and end-users using sustainability. This ambition is understood in the sales department, but needs to be supported throughout the whole organization in order to make the sustainable proposition successful.

1.4 Research request from Weir Minerals

The company recently started exploring sustainability in their organization, and formulated two questions that this research would like to answer;

 What is the current sustainability performance of WMNL?

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | 2. Theoretical Framework 15

2. Theoretical Framework

This chapter provides a theoretical background for the most important terms in this research.

2.1 Sustainability

Sustainability is a very broad term and needs to be narrowed down for the scope of this research. Within the overall definition of the term sustainability an underlying organising principle called sustainable development can be identified. Sustainable development is linked to the carrying capacity of natural systems and is described as an equilibrium where resources are used at the same rate as the can be replenished (Meadows & Randers, 2004). In 1987 the Brundtland Commission as part of the Word Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) of the United Nations (UN) came up with the most widely adopted description of sustainable development so far;

“Sustainable development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987)

The Brundtland commission proposed that sustainable development is based on two-pillars; (1) environmental concerns and (2) development concerns (Pope et al., 2004). Later on researchers agreed that a third pillar was required. The second pillar that addresses development concerns could be split in social and economic factors making it the triple bottom line that consists of (1) environmental, (2) social and (3) economic pillars.

Robert and Anderson (2002) defined four system conditions for a sustainable world. A sustainable society is not subject to increasing burdens from: (1) concentrations of substances extracted from the crust of the earth, (2) concentrations of substances produced by society, (3) degradation by physical means and (4) that people are not subject to conditions that undermine their capacity to meet their needs. This is translated into four sustainability principles that are depicted in Table 1.

Table 1: Four sustainable system conditions

Sustainability Principles (Robert & Anderson, 2002)

To become a sustainable society we must eliminate our contributions to...

#1 the systematic increase of concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth's crust (for example, heavy metals and fossil fuels).

#2 the systematic increase of concentrations of substances produced by society (for example, plastics, dioxins, PCBs and DDT).

#3 the systematic physical degradation of nature and natural processes (for example, over harvesting forests, destroying habitat and overfishing).

#4 conditions that systematically undermine people’s capacity to meet their basic human needs (for example, unsafe working conditions and not enough pay to live on.

2.1.1 Sustainability in organisations

Some authors claim that the missing ingredient in many corporate strategies is sustainability (Bonn & Fisher, 2011). This statement is support by Kuosmanen and Kuosmanen (2009) they conclude that sustainability is a success factor in both public and private organisations. There are various reasons why companies should adopt sustainability in their organisation e.g. Kiewiet and Vos (2007) state that incorporating sustainability reduces business risk. Faber, Jorna and Van Engelen (2005) state that it creates new market opportunities.

According to Kiewiet and Vos (2007) there are three main questions that arise when sustainability is discussed in organizations:

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | 2. Theoretical Framework 16 Thus, the definition of sustainable development discussed earlier is too general. The definition goes beyond the boundaries of an organisation and is more related to global performance indicators than individual organisations. Hence an adjusted definition is formulated to be applicable for organisations:

“Meeting the needs of a firm’s direct and indirect stakeholders without compromising its ability to meet the needs of future stakeholders as well” (Hockerts, 1999)

In order to reach the earlier discussed sustainable system conditions there are two perspectives of improvement methods described in literature. The first perspective is about ‘doing more with less’ called dematerialisation and is part of eco-efficiency literature. The other method is ‘doing things different’ called substitution and part of eco-effectiveness thinking (Hukkinen, 2001; Barbiroli, 2006; Peters et al. 2013). Eco-efficiency measures like dematerialisation can only reach limited increase in sustainability performance, whereas the starting point for eco-effectiveness is that a whole system or process is redesigned in order to for instance stop generating waste at all (Wang and Cote, 2011). Robert et al. (2002) and Waage et al. (2005) made an overview that combines these two perspectives and the four system conditions into a decision-making framework for organisations. Peters et al, (2013) use a simplified version of this framework in their research that is depicted in Table 2.

Table 2: Simplified sustainability decision-making framework (Peters et al. 2013)

Condition 1 Condition 2 Condition 3 Condition 4 Earth as supplier of finite resources Earth as processor / storage of used resources Earth as producer of renewable resources Well-being of people on earth Dematerialisation productivity Resource productivity Resource productivity Resource productivity Resource

Less Waste Less Waste Less Waste Less Waste

Substitution Abundant Natural like Less area required

Service-orientation

Renewable Degradable Management _routines Equity

2.2 Product analysis

External or internal stakeholders are incentivising organisations to improve the sustainability performance of their products. Assessing products on sustainability performance can be used as starting point for improving sustainable performance of products. A products life cycle discusses all these different steps from the beginning until the end-of-life of a product. Literature describes different phases in a products life cycle (Table 3). But the general consensus is that there is a raw materials phase, production phase, usage phase and end-of-life (Ashby, 2003; ISO, 2000; Peters et al., 2013; Hur, Lee, Ryu and Kwon, 2004).

Table 3: Product life cycle phases

Ashby (2013) ISO 14040 (2000) Peters et al., 2013 Hur et al. (2004) Raw Materials Material Raw Material

acquisition Raw Materials Pre-manufacturing

Material processing Parts

Manufacturing Manufacture Manufacture and

assembly Manufacturing Manufacturing

Usage Use Use and Service Use Use

End-of-Life Disposal Retirement and

recovery End-of-Life End-of-Life

Treatment and disposal

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | 2. Theoretical Framework 17

2.2.1 Big Themes Framework

The BTF (Peters et al., 2013) is a product-oriented approach of assessing an organisations product on the topic of sustainability. The framework is designed to address difficulties in the development of sustainable product design strategies. The framework investigates themes, so called big themes, which manufacturers can use to direct future product development. The BTF is build out of an analysis of corporate sustainability reports (CSR) of large multinational organisations. The five big themes identified are; materials, energy, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water and hazardous/toxic substances. These themes can be addressed for all different life cycle phases individually. Below each of the five themes the BTF recognises some of the four sustainable system conditions that were described earlier in Table 4.

Table 4: Sustainable system conditions in the BTF

Raw Materials Energy GHG emissions Hazardous/toxic _substances Water

Su st ain abl e sys tem con d it ion Earth as supplier of finite resources Earth as supplier of finite resources Earth as processor/storage of used resources Earth as processor/ storage of used resources Earth as supplier of finite resources Earth as processor / storage of used resources Earth as processor / storage of used resources Well-being of people on earth Earth as producer of renewable resources

The BTF also makes a distinction between dematerialisation and substitution measures that can be used to improve sustainable performance of the five themes. The difficulty for organisations to implement these sustainability measures in product development processes lies within the high complexity and ambiguity of the topic (Loorbach, Frantzeskaki & Thissen, 2011). The BTF provides an overview and brings down the complexity and ambiguity of the topic of sustainability in strategic decision making, since results are depicted in one overview.

2.2.2 Assessment methods

Peters et al. (2013) do not describe a method to gather the required information to complete the BTF. However, the BTF is suitable for the use of quantitative or qualitative data. Qualitative data gathering can be performed using product and industry experts, but no concrete methods are described for this type of analysis. Quantitative data gathering can be done using existing methods. This research identified three different quantitative methods suitable for use.

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | 2. Theoretical Framework 18 Depth of analysis

A major commonality amongst the three product assessment methods is that products are analysed throughout the entire product lifecycle. Analysing a product throughout all these life cycle phases enables an organisation to focus product improvements at the right life cycle phase where the largest environmental impact is generated. The difference between the three product assessment methods is the depth of analysis. First of all an overview of objectives for the different methods is depicted in Table 5. Todd et al. (1999) developed a framework that formulates seven questions in order to determine if a full life cycle analysis is necessary or a more streamlined assessment can provide sufficient information. Added to the framework of Todd et al. (1999) is information that is related to the three specific assessments methods that were discussed. Goals, requirements, costs, time and type of employee are deducted from ISO 14001, streamlined LCA from (Todd et al., 1999; Arena et al., 2005; Verghese et al., 2010; Hochschorner & Finnveden, 2003) and NPR-CEN/TS 16524:2013 from the documentation of the guideline (NEN, 2013). All variables are presented in the assessment selection framework in Table 5 and Table 6.

Scope of analysis

The scope of analysis is an important starting point for LCA studies (Rebitzer et al., 2004). The scope of analysis is described as selecting the system boundaries and focal unit of analysis. Setting the right scope is important in order to be able to benchmark results of analysis with other organisations or products. Hur et al. (2009) suggest that the scope of the research can reduced by excluding some levels of the product system without compromising the general conclusion that can be deducted from the data.

Table 5: Assessment method objectives

Full LCA Streamlined LCA NPR-CEN/TS 16524:2013

What are the objectives of the analysis?

Identifying opportunities to improve the environmental performance of products at various points in their life cycle

Informing decision-makers in industry, government or non-government organisations (e.g. for the purpose of strategic planning, priority setting, product or process design or redesign)

The selection of relevant indicators of environmental performance, including measurement techniques

Marketing (e.g. implementing an eco-labelling scheme, making an environmental claim, or producing an environmental product declaration)

Adapted from ISO 14044

Identify the environmental aspects of a product, including but not limited to energy aspects

Be able to make progress in product design (for

environmental impact

reduction), taking into account capabilities of the enterprise Promote to clients and public authorities the environmental improvement approach on a product with this methodology (environmental claim)

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | 2. Theoretical Framework 19 Table 6: Assessment selection framework (Todd et al., 1999) additions marked with *

Full LCA Streamlined LCA NPR-CEN/TS 16524:2013 Less opportunity for streamlining More opportunity for streamlining What is the goal of

the analysis?* Internal explanatory knowledge ISO certification Internal

descriptive knowledge Internal exploration External compliance

How will results be

used? Marketing, labelling, public polity Estimate relative difference Scoping, screening, identifying hot spots

Is there a dominant

life-cycle stage? No dominant stage Somewhat dominant Very dominant Who is the study

audience? External Internal and external Internal What is the

threshold for

uncertainty? Low uncertainty Moderate High uncertainty To what extent are

recycled/reused materials used?

Virgin and recycled

materials Virgin and reused materials Recycled/reused materials

How narrowly is the

product defined? Specific product Product type Generic product How much is

already known about the product?

Low knowledge of

all life cycle stages High knowledge of some life cycle stages High knowledge of all life-cycle stages

What are the requirements for analysis?*

LCA software Database-usage

Education Streamlined LCA tool

Calculator tool and documentation What is the estimated budget available?* € 0 – 9000 € 0 – 1000 € 89,01 What kind of employee is

required?* external expert internal expert internal employee What is the

available time for

analysis?* 6-12 months 1-12 weeks 1-2 weeks

2.3 Process analysis

The study focuses on the new product development processes (NPD) inside organisations. The potential to improve the environmental performance of products in the design stage is considered large, because this stage is the starting point of a products life-cycle (Hauschild et al., 2004). Not only new products can be subjected to ecodesign and DfE considerations, also existing products can be improved using ecodesign and DfE considerations. An ecodesign maturity model is the only method identified in literature that investigates practices in the NPD process (Pigosso, Ozenfeld and McAloone, 2013). There are no alternative methods present in literature. This resulted in the development of the DfE CMM by the DoSym research programme.

2.3.1 Design for Environment Capabilities Maturity Model

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | 2. Theoretical Framework 20 The first goal for the tool is looking at and beyond NPD processes; it assesses how mature the integration of DfE practices is in the entire organisation. Hoogerwerf (2013) categorised and identified the DfE practices from literature in three categories; management and operational practices, supply chain practices and closing the material cycle practices. The next goal of the tool is to become generally applicable as self-assessment tool for machine manufacturers in all industries. Since the tool was designed to become a self-assessment tool it does not provide a single solution to improve ecodesign practices in individual organisations. This means that the tool lacks organisation specific characteristics. However, this lack of organisation specific characteristics means that the tool can be used to provide direction without losing the overview due to a large amount of details.

After development of the tool the tool was further developed and tested at another DoSym company. Bouma (2014) applied the tool in his research at an organisation producing centrifugal pumps.

Bouma (2014) made minor changes to the original DfE CMM; the management and operational practices were divided into two separate categories, creating a clearer overview of the separate DfE practices. The model is furthermore expanded from eighteen to twenty practices with additions in the management practices category. In contrary to Hoogerwerf (2013), Bouma (2014) provided a small manual with Dutch instructions on the workings of the model and a list of translations of the twenty individual practices. Although the instructions were added to the questionnaire still a lot of employees experienced difficulties working with the self-assessment tool.

About the first goal of the tool Bouma (2014) reflects that the DfE capability maturity model succeeds in assessing the maturity level of the organisation with the modifications from the model Hoogerwerf (2013) used. The second goal of the model, use the model for self-assessment, Bouma (2014) concludes that the capabilities are made out of too difficult terms, resulting in a wide scope and unclear practices. Respondents experienced difficulties completing the questionnaire because they were not familiar with principles and terminology. No further solutions were drawn from these observations; however it is possible that this observation is linked to the relatively low level of maturity that is present at the organisation.

Capability categories

There are four capability practices categories present in the DfE CMM. These four categories are the result of a combined effort of Hoogerwerf (2013) and Bouma (2014). There are twenty individual practices identified divided over four capability categories.

 Management practices: Practices related to product development activities and related processes that address environmental concerns or sustainable considerations from a managerial perspective. These practices are generic and can be applied by any

organisation, regardless of the type of products developed (Pigosso et al., 2013). There are six management practices identified.

 Operational practices: Practices which describe the technical issues of product/system specification and design (Pigosso et al., 2013; Bouma, 2014). There are seven operational practices identified.

 Supply chain practices: Practices which extended their view towards the whole supply chain and life cycle (Hoogerwerf, 2013; Bouma, 2014). There are three supply chain practices identified

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | 2. Theoretical Framework 21 Capability levels

Pigosso et al. (2013) suggest the use of five different capability levels in a CMM. Hoogerwerf (2013) designed the DfE CMM with four capability levels. The four capability levels are also used by Bouma (2014).

0. Incomplete: the practice is not applied or is applied incompletely by the organisation. 1. Ad-hoc: practice is applied in an ad-hoc way.

2. Controlled: the application of the practice is formalised and controlled, i.e. the performance is measured and monitored throughout time with performance indicators. 3. Optimised: the performance of the application per practice is continuously improved

based on the measurement and monitoring. Capacity grid

The capacity grid provides an overview of all the individual practices with specific individual capability descriptions derived from (Hoogerwerf, 2013; Bouma, 2014). The capacity grid is also used as basis for the questionnaire respondents are required to complete (Appendix 1).

Maturity level grid

DfE maturity levels are formulated to represent different stages of ecodesign implementation inside an organisation. The levels are formulated in successive stages that can be used as guide for future improvement towards a higher performance. The four capability categories (management, operational, supply chain and closing material cycle) are combined with the capability levels (0,1,2 and 3) in a maturity level grid (Table 7). The capability levels represent an average score that is required throughout the whole group of practices. E.g. to reach a maturity level of two, an organisations is required to have all management practices at capability level 2 and all operational practices at level 1.

Table 7: Maturity level grid

Practice Category Maturity

Level 1 Maturity level 2 Maturity level 3 Maturity level 4 Maturity level 5

Management Level 1 Level 2 Level 2 Level 3 Level 3

Operational Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 3

Supply Chain Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

Closing Cycle Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

Current and ambition level

The model is designed to generate two different sets of outcomes, the current and the ambition level of DfE practices. Hoogerwerf (2013) stated that respondents could fill in ambition levels for three practices, Bouma however (2014) did not discuss a maximum number of ambition levels that could be completed by respondents.

Respondents

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | 3. Research Design 22

3. Research Design

3.1 Research framework

The research problem originates from an organisational problem that corresponds with the research goals of the DoSym project. Companies participating in the project should be able to systematically assess their sustainability performance. First this research project will improve and test the BTF and the DfE CMM at WMNL. The second objective is to assess the sustainability performance of WMNL and design a roadmap in order to improve their sustainable performance. Critical for the assessment of sustainability is access to information from key-stakeholders in the organisation. WMNL grants access to key-key-stakeholders and information on strategic level.

3.2 Research objectives

The first objective of this research is to test and verify the BTF and the DfE CMM that are developed in the DoSym research programme. The DfE CMM was developed with the purpose to be applicable for other discrete manufacturers. The BTF has not yet been used in practice. Issues that need to be addressed when verifying the models are; usability, efficiency, applicability, reliability and validity. The models will be used at WMNL and improved for future use if necessary. The second objective is to assess the sustainable performance at the case of this research, a discrete manufacturing company, namely WMNL. The BTF and the DfE CMM will be applied to assess the sustainable performance.

3.3 Research questions

The formulated research objectives are investigated by answering research questions that are related to the objectives. This results in two main research questions; these questions are supported with sub questions in order to achieve the research objectives.

Main research questions;

 How viable are the two sustainability tools from the DoSym research programme, the DfE CMM and the BTF, in a discrete manufacturing company?

 What is the current sustainability performance of WMNL and how can it be improved? Sub research questions;

 How can the DfE CMM and BTF be validated?

 How is an organisation able to determine the right scope and depth of a product analysis?  How viable are the DfE CMM and BTF at WMNL?

o What is WMNL’s product performance regarding sustainability? o What is WMNL’s process maturity regarding sustainability?

o How can WMNL’s systematically improve their overall sustainability performance?  In what areas requires the DfE CMM and the BTF improvement to be more applicable for

companies with the characteristics and context of WMNL?

3.4 Regulative and reflective cycle

Kerssens-van Drongelen (2001) propose a model (Figure 1) that depicts the interaction of the regulative cycle as described by van Strien (1997) on the reflective cycle described by van Aken (1994). The reflective cycle contributes to the development of theory since a proposed method or model can be tested and validated within the context of different cases. The regulative cycle is used to design a tool, method or metric to solve a problem.

Reflective cycle

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | 3. Research Design 23 Regulative cycle

From the case selection phase this research will enter the regulative cycle. In the regulative cycle the set of problems at WMNL will first be discussed of which afterwards one of the designed problems will be selected. In the diagnosis (analysis) phase this research will not only conduct the DfE CMM and BTF, it will also expand or improve the models regarding the context of WMNL. In the plan (design) phase an improvement plan or roadmap for improvement of sustainable performance for WMNL will be proposed on both product and process sustainability. The interaction between the two cycles is described in Table 8.

Table 8: Description of reflective and regulative cycle phases

Cycle Phase Description

Reflective Case selection WMNL is already selected as case, since WMNL is part of the DoSym research project and requested help from researchers in their exploration on the topic of sustainability and sustainable product development.

Regulative Set of problems The research request from WMNL was predefined in assessing how products score on different life-cycle phases and how mature the NPD process is. The results from these analyses should result in a roadmap for improvement.

Regulative Problem Choice Regulative Diagnosis

(analysis) Design for environment capabilities maturity model application and the usage of the big theme framework filled in with a life-cycle analysis method.

Regulative Plan (design) Improvement of both assessment methods for future use and the design of a roadmap for improvement for WMNL.

Reflective Reflection about results

Reflection about results derived from the application of the two tools at WMNL.

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3.5 Research design

There are five different phases that together will answer all research questions and objectives in this research. The research design is depicted in Table 9.

Table 9: Research design

Literature Study Company Analysis Product Analysis Process Analysis _ImprovementRoadmap for

A

cti

vi

ty

Research on the topic of sustainability and sustainability in organisations. Investigation of different product analysis tools like LCA, streamlined LCA and NPR-CEN/TS 16524:2013. Researching the characteristics of the BTF. Researching the development and characteristics of the DfE CMM.

Perform a company analysis, to understand the brands, products and applications of WMNL. Investigate the product selection process. Investigate the difference between customers, regions and the sales proposition.

Applying the depth and scope analysis developed during the literature study at WMNL. Applying the selected tool at WMNL for data gathering.

Using the data from the selected tool to complete the big theme framework for WMNL.

Adapt the DfE maturity model for usage at WMNL.

Apply the adapted DfE maturity model to WMNL with use of the questionnaire and interviews.

Analysis of data in terms of data patterns, outliers. Analyse the different respondents. Reflect about the assessment method. Improve the DfE CMM for future use.

Formulate improvement projects deducted from the product and process analysis R es u lt Theoretical framework of the research. Framework to determine the right depth and scope of product analysis. . Concrete characteristics of the BTF.

Reflection on the development and characteristics of the DfE CMM

Overview of company, products and served applications. Product and application matrix

Overview of customer characteristics, regional characteristics and the sales proposition.

Product application matrix for WMNL. The selection of the right tool for the requirements of this research. Data gathering with the use of the selected tool and reflecting on the usage of the tool. Completion of the big themes framework and reflection on the results and fit with input data. Suggestions for future research.

Adapted DfE CMM for WMNL.

Results of the DfE CMM analysis.

Quantitative data analysis and qualitative data analysis.

Respondent analysis Improved DfE capabilities maturity model for future use.

Improvement projects to increase the sustainable performance of the organisation.

A plan to develop a vision and strategy for sustainability.

3.5.1 Literature study

As starting point of the research a literature study is conducted in order to investigate different product analysis tools, the BTF and research the development and characteristics of the DfE CMM. A systematic review is used to create a dataset of articles that use sustainability assessment tools or methods. In contrast to traditional literature review, systematically reviewing literature will reduce the bias of a researcher concerning the incorporation or exclusion of literature in the study. Furthermore, this way of selecting papers clearly communicates the process of how the study is performed (Denyer & Neely, 2004) In order to replicate the search for relevant literature, the procedure of how to select papers is critically discussed. Three different data-sources are used, that will result in most likely similar results; (1) Google scholar using the RUG-proxy, (2) Business Source Premier and (3) The University of Newcastle library search.

Keywords that are included in the literature review:  Sustainability in organisations;

 Sustainable product development;  Design for Environment;

 Ecodesign;  LCA-analysis;

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3.5.2 Company analysis

This section of the research will analyse the organisational context of this research. In order to perform a product analysis in the next chapter it is crucial to understand this organisational context with the products that are produced at WMNL. This section will also investigate how different product and applications relate to each other.

Interviews

Seven employees are interviewed (Table 10) to gather knowledge about the organisational structure, different product groups and different applications. The interviews with the product managers will focus on the different life-cycle phases and different applications where the product can be used. Business development managers provided more insight about the organisational structure and NPD process. The sales manager was interviewed to understand to whom the product is being sold and what characteristics the different types of customers entail.

Table 10: Company analysis interviewees Interviewee Function

A Sales manager GEHO

B Product manager GEHO (T)ZPM & ZPR C Product manager Warman Q-pumps D Product manager GEHO DH / APEXS

E Product manager Total Solutions F Business development manager GEHO G Business development Specialist Internal documentation and information

Internal documentation is used to analyse the different products and applications that WMNL is producing. The internal documentation contains product presentations and product brochures. Global sales meeting

During the annual global sales meeting of WMNL a question to identify difference in trends around the world is distributed. During the global sales meeting a presentation on the topic of sustainable product development is present to create awareness among the organisation. The results from the questionnaire should help WMNL with focussing their sustainable proposition in regions where it is most effective.

3.5.2 Product analysis

This section will analyse the environmental performance of WMNL products. The analysis consists of a scope and depth analysis, the analysis of the selected assessment tool and application of the BTF at the product under investigation.

Interviews

Four employees are interviewed to make an overview of product-group life cycle characteristics (Table 11). The same interviewee provided information for selecting the right product for analysis.

Table 11: Product analysis interviewees Interviewee Function

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | 3. Research Design 26 Internal employee

An internal employee from the PI-QA team will help gathering the data required to fill in the selected product assessment tool. The internal employee will spent forty hours of work on the tool.

3.5.3 Process analysis

This section of the research will analyse the maturity of WMNL using the DfE CMM. First of all the method will be checked for applicability at WMNL. Secondly, the DfE CMM is adapted to fit the characteristics of WMNL. These adaptations to the DfE CMM will be derived from interviews with respondents shown in Table 12.

Table 12: Explorative interviews DfE capability maturity model Interviewee Function

A Supply Chain Director (MT)

B Manager PIQA

C After market manager GEHO DfE capabilities maturity model

In order to assess the maturity level of WMNL a group of sixteen employees (Table 13) that are part of the NPD process are selected to fill in the questionnaire. The researcher will be present during all questionnaire sessions, in order to also gather additional qualitative data when the respondents complete the questionnaire.

Table 13: Respondents for capability maturity model questionnaire Respondent Function

A Business development manager GEHO

B Manager PIQA

C Business development specialist D Engineering & TI Director (MT) E After market manager GEHO F After market manager G Regional sales manager H Supply Chain Director (MT)

I Mechanical engineering supervisor J Mechanical engineer GEHO

K Project engineering supervisor L TI programme-manager M Commodity buyer N Forwarding team leader

O Product Manager GEHO DH / APEXS P Mechanical engineer GEHO

Data analysis

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | 3. Research Design 27 Respondent analysis

The ability of respondents to provide information for the questionnaire or qualitative analysis will be analysed. From this analysis general conclusions are drawn about what kind of employees able to provide valuable information about the DfE practices of an organisation. DfE CMM improvement

By identifying difficulties that respondents experienced while filling in the DfE CMM and posing solutions for them an improved DfE CMM is presented.

3.5.4 Roadmap for improvement

The results from the BTF and DfE CMM will help formulating future projects for WMNL to improve the sustainability performance of the products and organisation. The BTF will provide insight in the big themes that are the most important and the life cycle phases that have the highest environmental impact on products from WMNL. The DfE CMM will help the organisation to reach a higher level of maturity.

3.6. Reliability and validation

In order to guarantee reliability and validation in this research, the following actions are taken into account. All tactics and actions are found in Table 14.

Table 14: Reliability and validity of the research

Topic Tactic Action/execution

Construct validity Multiple sources of evidence Academic literature, company

information, observations and expert interviews.

Chain of evidence Multiple sources of evidence used together to support findings. Review draft Feedback will always be critically

reviewed and incorporated. Internal validity Selection bias Verify the used data sources with

internal experts.

Rival requirements selection Criticality of interviewers, address incongruence between respondents. Triangulation Multiple data collectors & interviewers External validity Critically selected case. WMNL selected as case by the DoSym

research project.

Chain of evidence Documentation of interviews. Generalisation of tool Reflection on the use of the tool. Reliability Guided interviews Topics for interviews are

pre-determined. Semi-structured interviews.

Database for data All documentation will be collected in one final research map.

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | Company Analysis 28

4. Company Analysis

First of all an introduction in the overall structure of the corporate group and the three divisions will help put the focal company WMNL in perspective. Second an analysis of all product groups and applications will be presented. Third a summarised explanation about the pump selection process is covered.

4.1. Weir Group PLC

Since October 1994 WMNL is part of the Weir Group. The Weir Group is founded in 1871 and nowadays 15.200 employees are working for the Weir Group. Weir Group is a leading global engineering solutions provider. The organisation focuses on designing, manufacturing and supplying innovative products and expert engineering services. The Weir Group headquarters is located in Glasgow Scotland.

The Weir Group has a clear defined strategy and vision to ensure a growth of market share by delivering high quality and innovative products and services. These products and services need to be delivered wherever and whenever global energy, resource and processing customers require them. The core strategy for Weir Group consists of four main pillars;

 Innovation: The strategy gives main priority in customer induced innovation. The company greatly invests in personal development of engineers and market research.  Collaboration: Working closely together with colleagues, customers and suppliers

ensures a collaborative mind-set that generates effective results for all stakeholders.  Value chain excellence: The organisation supports and invests in technology,

infrastructure and safety performance to continuously develop the value chain.

 Global capability. The company can deliver products and services with a high level of capability and expertise wherever the customers are in the world.

Three main industries; minerals, oil & gas and power & industrial, are identified and used as divisions for the company

Table 15: Key figures of Weir Group divisions

Minerals Oil & Gas Power & Industrial

Revenue in £ 1.304.000.000 796.000.000 330.000.000

Profit in £ 269.000.000 181.000.000 31.000.000

Main Markets Mining processing Minerals processing Oil sands Tunnelling dredging Oil Drilling Gas Drilling Oil Refinery Nuclear Conventional power generation

Renewable power generation Water and waste water Downstream oil and gas Industrial processes

Employees 8.300 3.700 3.200

4.2 Weir Minerals

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4.3 Weir Minerals Netherlands

WMNL is located in Venlo the Netherlands, and responsible for only a part of the product range from the larger Weir Minerals division. This production location is founded by the brothers Holthuis. The company name `Gebroeders Holthuis´ is the origin of the GEHO brand-name, the brothers invented, developed and manufactured first positive displacement pumps. In 1996 the WEIR GROUP purchased the company and merged it into their organisation. After the Merger the group acquired the Warman brand in 2004 and placed the production of axial flow pumps at WMNL. In 2013 the company was licensed to produce high pressure grinding rolls (HPGR) under the KHD brand, which are able to crush rocks with a high amount of energy efficiency.

Figure 2: Company organogram

4.4. WMNL product groups

The products from WMNL are divided over two different brands; GEHO and Warman. A description of the brand and underlying product groups is presented below.

4.4.1 GEHO

For the GEHO brand, different products are offered. The main product groups are; APEXS

The annular pressure exchange system (APEXS) group entails a new technology pump that is built to pump contaminated, corrosive fluids in a pulsation free flow. The pump is separated from the wet end, direct contact with the corrosive fluid, which ensures a high reliability and high uptime with relatively low maintenance costs in comparison with competitive solutions. DHC-DHT group

The group entails hydraulically driven piston pumps that are able to pump the thickest slurries in the industry with over 75 percent solids. Hydraulic driven piston pumps with transfer tubes have no maximum particle size to be transferred.

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | Company Analysis 30 Total Solutions

The total solutions GEHO service offers engineered solutions for different applications like slurry transportation or mixing systems. The services range from basic engineering support to the total engineering and calculation of transportation or mixing systems. In every total solutions project a GEHO (T)ZPM or GEHO DH(C/T) pump forms the heart of the system.

ZPM-TZPM group

This group entails crankshaft driven piston diaphragm pumps, which are the main product group of WMNL; it entails around 70 per cent of total revenue. The crankshaft driven piston diaphragm pumps are used to handle abrasive, corrosive and high temperature slurries. The maximum percentage of solids in the slurry that can be transferred by this type of pump is 70 percent. This pump possesses very low wear characteristics since the fluid pumped is never in contact with the actual pumping mechanism. This enables using the pump with hear wear slurries and more extreme conditions. The product type is divided in two groups.

 ZPM: crankshaft driven two-cylinder double acting piston diaphragm pump  TZPM: crankshaft driven three-cylinder single acting piston diaphragm pump ZPR-TZP group

The group entails merely the same products as the ZPM-TZPM product group with completely different applications because of the absence of the diaphragm wet end of the pump. The main applications for this pump are found in process feeding.

 ZPR: Crankshaft driven one or two cylinder double-acting piston pump  TZP: Crankshaft driven three-cylinder single-acting piston pump

4.4.2 Warman

The Warman brand entails three types of products, axial flow pumps, horizontal dewatering pumps and horizontal slurry pumps. The axial flow pump is the only subgroup produced at WMNL and commonly referred to as Q-pump.

Q-pumps

Q-pumps are able to continuously circulate corrosive and abrasive fluids. They are mainly used in crystallisation processes of brine, phosphate, sodium chloride and potash.

4.5 Applications

WMNL delivers products for a vast array of applications; the applications can be divided in five categories. The categories are based upon different locations in the mining process; the actual mine, process industry, tailings management or hydro transportation.

Mine Exploitation

At a mining site the WMNL products are mostly used for mine dewatering and mine backfilling purposes. Dewatering a mining location is crucial to enable the mining company to excavate the mining site. Mine backfilling helps stabilising tunnels and will dispose tailings; if tailings are used for backfilling a bit of cement is added to create extra support in the backfilled locations. Mine-backfilling is a growing market; forecasts from a research organisation called SNL indicate that in 2015 more than 50 percent of mining operations will take place underground. Traditionally open-pit mining was the most dominant form of mining, but easy accessible resources are running out, so (more expensive) underground mining is a growing market. Process Industry

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Master Thesis J.C.F.M. Hack | Company Analysis 31 these applications is because the processes take place at high pressures and temperatures. The pumps from WMNL are designed to handle corrosive, abrasive and high temperature materials. Tailings Management

Management of tailings is crucial in operating a mining process. The rock that is being excavated contains only a small percentage of valuable ore. What remains is invaluable rock and dirt that will not be further processed. In order to extract the ore from the rock it is pulverised and the small particles are processed in a bath of chemicals for the actual ore extraction. The rock without ore is called tailings and the dirt needs to be transported away from the processing plant. Another typical tailings management application is fly ash from coal powered energy plants.

Hydro transportation

Ore can be found in very remote areas, therefore material needs to be transported to harbours or processing plants that are multiple kilometres away. In order to get material to the desired location, road transport, rail transport or transportation using a pipeline is taken into consideration. WMNL provides pumps that enable the transport of ore through pipelines that are up to 400 km long.

4.6 Product and application matrix

Product-groups are not designed to serve a single application or application category. One product-group can deliver performance on a wide array of applications. A matrix is developed to show the connection between the product-groups and applications of WMNL. The brands and product-groups are found on top of the matrix and applications and their categories on the left side (Table 17).

4.6.1 Pump selection for application

Selecting the right pump for an application is a process that depends on many variables. Application engineers perform the calculation and write a recommendation for the selection pumps. Application engineers calculate and check customer requirements for the application with the capabilities of different pump types. The selection of pump-type is not always difficult, if the application manager is dealing with an application that is only suited for the APEXS or Q-PUMP it is already pre-determined which pump type will be quoted to the customer. However, when dealing with the remainder of the applications or a total solutions project, there is a trade-off between the two main product groups DH and ZPM pumps. The most important variables that determine the selection between DH and ZPM pumps are depicted in Table 16.

Table 16: Pump selection criteria

Characteristic Relatively low value Relatively high value

Pump flow capacity DH-Pump ZPM-Pump

Static pumping pressure ZPM-Pump DH-Pump

Solids percentage ZPM-Pump DH-Pump

Slurry specific gravity ZPM-Pump DH-Pump

Viscosity ZPM-Pump DH-Pump

Slump Value ZPM-Pump DH-Pump

Particle size ZPM-Pump DH-Pump

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Legend: X = can be used for this application / XX = commonly used for this application / XXX = mostly used for this application Brand and product-group

GEHO GEHO GEHO GEHO WARMAN GEHO

DHC-DHT ZPM-TZPM ZPR-TZP APEXS Q-PUMPS Total Solutions

Applica tio n s Mine Exploitation Mine dewatering X X XXX XX Hydro hoisting X X Mine Backfilling XXX X X XX Process

Industry Autoclave feed XX

Digester feed XX XX Biomass XX X X X Coal Gasification XX Process recirculation – salt / potash XXX

Tailings Mine / process _{tailing HCSD} XX XX X XXX

Sewage XX X X X Ash handling XX X X XX Hydro transportation LD Pipeline ore transportation XXX X