Plastics Industry 4.0

How the marriage of Industry 4.0 and the Circular Economy can radically transform waste management—and our world Do we really have to make a choice between a wasteless and nonproductive world or a wasteful and ultimately self-destructive one? Futurist and world-renowned waste management scientist Antonis Mavropoulos and sustainable business developer and digital strategist Anders Nilsen respond with a ringing and optimistic “No!” They explore the Earth-changing potential of a happy (and wasteless) marriage between Industry 4.0 and a Circular Economy that could—with properly reshaped waste management practices—deliver transformative environmental, health, and societal benefits. This book is about the possibility of a brand-new world and the challenges to achieve it. The fourth industrial revolution has given us innovations including robotics, artificial intelligence, 3D-printing, and biotech. By using these technologies to advance the Circular Economy—where industry produces more durable materials and runs on its own byproducts—the waste management industry will become a central element of a more sustainable world and can ensure its own, but well beyond business as usual, future. Mavropoulos and Nilsen look at how this can be achieved—a wasteless world will require more waste management—and examine obstacles and opportunities such as demographics, urbanization, global warming, and the environmental strain caused by the rise of the global middle class. · Explore the new prevention, reduction, and elimination methods transforming waste management · Comprehend and capitalize on the business implications for the sector · Understand the theory via practical examples and case studies · Appreciate the social benefits of the new approach Waste-management has always been vital for the protection of health and the environment. Now it can become a crucial role model in showing how Industry 4.0 and the Circular Economy can converge to ensure flourishing, sustainable—and much brighter—future.

This book provides a sophisticated insight into the development of the plastics industry in terms of digitalization and Industry 4.0. The background to these increasingly more important topics is discussed along with the prerequisite knowledge regarding process complexity and data acquisition to build the foundation of data driven digital processes. Furthermore, the facets of so-called cyber physical systems including their key components are discussed and illustrated using industrial application as well as scientific use cases.

This book presents the proceedings from the International Symposium for Production Research 2020. The cross-disciplinary papers presented draw on research from academics and practitioners from industrial engineering, management engineering, operational research, and production/operational management. It explores topics including: · computer-aided manufacturing; Industry 4.0 applications; simulation and modeling big data and analytics; flexible manufacturing systems; decision analysis quality management industrial robotics in production systems information technologies in production management; and optimization techniques. Presenting real-life applications, case studies, and mathematical models, this book is of interest to researchers, academics, and practitioners in the field of production and operation engineering.

Thermoplastics and Thermoplastic Composites, Third Edition bridges the technology and business aspects of thermoplastics, providing a guide designed to help engineers working in real-world industrial settings. The author explores the criteria for material selection, provides a detailed guide to each family of thermoplastics, and explains the various processing options for each material type. More than 30 families of thermoplastics are described with information on their advantages and drawbacks, special grades, prices, transformation processes, applications, thermal behavior, technological properties (tenacity, friction, dimensional stability), durability (ageing, creep, fatigue), chemical and fire behavior, electrical properties, and joining possibilities. In this third edition, standards and costs have been updated for all materials, and more information on topics such as bioplastics, 3D printing and recycling have been added. In addition, an entirely new chapter on the concept of ‘Industry 4.0’ has been added, with guidance and suggestions on the incorporation of virtualization, connectivity, and automation into the plastics engineering process to reduce materials and processing failure. Includes detailed case studies that illustrate best practices across a wide range of applications and industry sectors Presents a new chapter on the ‘Industry 4.0’ concept Suggests software solutions to assist with design, decision-making and management, along with other forms of automation

Emerging Trends in Medical Plastic Engineering and Manufacturing gives engineers and materials scientists working in the field detailed insights into upcoming technologies in medical polymers. While plastic manufacturing combines the possibility of mass production and wide design variability, there are still opportunities within the plastic engineering field which have not been fully adopted in the medical industry. In addition, there are numerous additional challenges related to the development of products for this industry, such as ensuring tolerance to disinfection, biocompatibility, selecting compliant additives for processing, and more. This book enables product designers, polymer processing engineers, and manufacturing engineers to take advantage of the numerous upcoming developments in medical plastics, such as autoregulated volume-correction to achieve zero defect production or the development of ‘intelligent’ single use plastic products, and methods for sterile manufacturing which reduce the need for subsequent sterilization processes. Finally, as medical devices get smaller, the book discusses the challenges posed by miniaturization for injection molders, how to respond to these challenges, and the rapidly advancing prototyping technologies. Provides a roadmap to the emerging technologies for polymers in the medical device industry, including coverage of ‘intelligent’ single use products, personalized medical devices, and the integration of manufacturing steps to improve workflows Helps engineers in the biomedical and medical devices industries to navigate and anticipate the special requirements of this field with relation to biocompatibility, sterilization methods, and government regulations Presents tactics readers can use to take advantage of rapid prototyping technologies, such as 3D printing, to reduce defects in production and develop products that enable entirely new treatment possibilities

Market research guide to the chemicals, coatings and plastics industry ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? a tool for strategic planning, employment searches or financial research. Contains trends analysis, statistical tables, and an industry glossary. Includes one page profiles of 400 leading chemicals, coatings and plastics industry firms ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? includes addresses, phone numbers, executive names.

This book bridges the technology and business aspects of thermoplastics, providing a guide designed for engineers working in real-world industrial settings. The author explores the criteria for material selection, provides a detailed guide to each family of thermoplastics, and also explains the various processing options for each material type. More than 30 families of thermoplastics are described with information on their advantages and drawbacks, special grades, prices, transformation processes, applications, thermal behaviour, technological properties (tenacity, friction, dimensional stability), durability (ageing, creep, fatigue), chemical and fire behaviour, electrical properties, and joining possibilities. Biron explores the technological properties and economics of the major thermoplastics and reinforced thermoplastics, such as polyethylene, and emerging polymers such as polybenzimidazole, Thermoplastic Elastomers (TPEs) and bioplastics. In the second edition, a new section ‘plastics solutions for practical problems’ provides over 25 case studies illustrating a wide range of design and production challenges across the spectrum of thermoplastics, from metal and glass replacement solutions, to fire retardant plastics and antimicrobials. In addition, Biron provides major new material on bioplastics and wood plastic composites (WPCs), and fully updated data throughout. Combining materials data, information on processing techniques, and economic aspects (pricing), Biron provides a unique end-to-end approach to the selection and use of materials in the plastics industry and related sectors Includes a new section of case studies, illustrating best practice across a wide range of applications and industry sectors New material on bioplastics and sustainable composites

With the rapid changes in technology that characterize the Fourth Industrial Revolution comes social evolution and the potential for future social crises. Understanding Industry 4.0 looks to determine the most probable oncoming changes and highlight the most important professions of the future.