Tian Yu 10,11,2008

Thesis topic Logistics Knowledge Research for Plastics Technology Programme Location: Finland-- Europe Plastics Industry Development

 For Large-volume plastic materials, study the volumes, traits, advantages and disadvantages, and applications.  Select one plastic raw material to study and mention reasons for choosing it.  To understand structure and manufacturing of PVC, and methods for extrusion of PVC pipes and profiles.  To know different regions’ PVC consumption and estimate the future consumption trend.  Use market research methods, to obtain information on PVC producing plants and PVC extrusion plants in the European Union.  Find location of PVC producing and PVC extrusion plants (geographical distribution) by logistics methods.  To understand the current location of PVC plants in Europe, in comparison with locational theory.

 Plastic with 100 years history and plays an important role in people’s life.  Plastic is commonly applied for different areas.  For instance, Medicine, Agriculture, Construct, Manufacture, Aviation, etc.  Product: Package, pipe, profile, toys, clothing, film, cable, etc.  Due to it is substitution for many other raw material (metal, woods), and its lower price in addition, plastic becomes a kinds of popular and favorite material.

The figure shows top two large volumes plastic materials consumption were PP (polypropylene) 24% and PVC (polymer of vinyl) 19% in will be the peak of Net PVC Capacity

 To maintain eubiosis, reducing the input of original raw materials (forest, mineral resources), PVC as one kind of substitution raw material to wood, aluminum and iron.  Lower cost becomes its main advantage. PVC is easy to manufacture and strong formability, in additional.  The infrastructure construction industry has a large requirement of PVC indeed.  PVC is widely used, in Pipes & Fittings and Profiles like window, door, sheeting, floor and ceiling.

 Advantage  Anti-fire, acid and alkali corrosion, light quality, heat insulation and preservation,  Good stability and dielectric property, durable, aging- resistance,  High bending strength and ductility  Easy to shape, construct  Disadvantage  Not good at stand fire resistance and unstable under high temperature  Low chemical resistance  HCL (Hydrogen chloride) discharged from the reaction

Pipes & Fittings, and Profile represent the two larger PVC application.

Pipe and Profile

Pipe: Hard PVC pipe is mixed with stabilizers, lubricants, and processing aids of prilling to extrusion molding. The processes steps are: supply materials powder - weighing- mixed extrusion prilling- extrusion molding- cooling- cut- test- deliveryProfile: PVC compound- vented silos three days to two months-warmed 380 0C- extruder- the following step is similar to pipe extrusion- cooling by air or water- cut

Extruder

The world PVC consumption has 3% increasing rate per year.

Western Europe 18% + Eastern Europe 4%= 22% European Total= 30,3 Million Tons *22%= 6,7 Million Tons.

Total consumption of PVC in the Eastern & Central European industry is tons when including the PVC used in cables installed in buildings.

 Pipelife  Dyka and Sotra-Seperef  Uralita  Alphacan  Dietzel-Univolt

 Profine-group  Veka  Tessenderlo  Deceuninck  Rehau  Gealan

Results 1) All the PVC resins’ Plant locations are almost along the coastline. 2) The total number of PVC resin plants are 18 which is smaller than the other two type of plants. 3) All the PVC Plants are in Western Europe in the more developed countries. On the other hand, there are a lot of PVC production extrusion plants distributed in Central- Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. 4) There is no Pipe producer plant in Italy while there are 3 Pipe producer in Finland and 2 in Sweden. On the other hand, there is one Profile producer in Italy and none in the other two compared countries.

Analysis 1)  oil transport by ship  Easy to get raw material  Saving transportation cost Analysis 2)  PVC plants provide the raw material to various industries (Pipe, Profile, Cable…)  The small number of PVC resin plants not means small capacity

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS Analysis 3) PVC is a raw material is quite easy to transport. Weight, size, and form it is easier to transport than the end products, pipe and profile. So to organize many pipe and profile plants in one country, transportation cost is the only factor to be considered. This is in keeping with the location theory.

Analysis 3)  Import PVC is cheap than build Plants in Eastern- Central Europe  Set PVC Production plant there to grab local market  Transportation fee is large for the PVC production  They need more PVC production for the infrastructure construction

Analysis 4)  Nordic dislike plastic profile and they prefer to use aluminum rather than plastic.  They like to use wood because there are many forests and nice wooden products.  Italy prefers PP pipe compare to PVC pipe

Discussion  Not exact location map-eyeball technology  The estimated position is enough and reliable.  Results is accurate for all cases.  Small capacity plants were dropped to simplify thesis and easier achieve results.  Other options of doing this thesis  Use different location techniques (eyeball, grid and network) to calculate the optimal transport route for the PVC industry.  keep the same topic by changing the research object to Asia particularly China.  Further research could be about other raw material for plastic like PP, PE using the same topic. DISCUSSION

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