Abstract
Environmental benchmarking is today a growth area. Generally speaking, benchmarking involves the comparison, ranking or rating of different business processes, units or companies against standards. The aim is to identify ways of improving the performance of operations, systems and processes.
The present survey deals with internal environmental benchmarking, which involves the comparison of the environmental performances of 4 units manufacturing the same product: Unsaturated Polyester Resins (UPR). These units are located in 4 European CRAY VALLEY plants (Figure 1): Drocourt (France), Miranda de Ebro (Spain), Sant Celoni (Spain) and Stallingborough (UK). The 5th CRAY VALLEY European UPR Unit, located in the Zwickau plant, was not considered in this survey since its UPR production is to be phased out.
This work was conducted during 6 months within the Quality-Safety-Environment Department of the CRAY VALLEY Company. CRAY VALLEY, together with CCP and Sartomer (in the USA), is the second largest resins manufacturer in the world and constitutes the Resins Division of ATOFINA, the chemical branch of the TOTAL FINA ELF group. Its 5 main product lines are: Structural Resins (among which UPR), Coating Resins, Waterborne Polymers, Hydrocarbon Resins, and Powder & Hard Resins.
UPR are thermosetting plastics that can be used in two types of applications : reinforced applications (composite materials made of UPR reinforced with fibreglass) for building and sanitary ware, boat and naval construction, automotive sector,…, and non-reinforced applications among which polyester concrete, gelcoat production, buttons and varnishes. In 2000, the production of UPR amounted to 88 kT in France (CRAY VALLEY's market share = 40%),507 kT in Western Europe (CRAY VALLEY's market share = 30%) and 1565 kT world-wide.
