Life cycle management of steel bars and blooms
Student name: Mr Devesh Narula
Guide: Dr Kamna Sachdeva
Year of completion: 2013
Host Organisation: Mahindra Sanyo Special Steel Pvt. Ltd., Maharashtra
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Pradeep Panigrahi
Abstract: As every corner of world is trying to get modernized, the concern for environment and resources
is getting prominence. One major industry which is of utter importance is steel manufacturing
industry and it is being termed as backbone of economy. Recently India had shown 33 per cent
growth in steel production in the last five years and was second only to China among the top-five
steel producing nations. Steel is one of the world's most recycled products which suggest that it
has continues life cycle. To make new steel further steel scrap is required which makes it most
viably recyclable product. Still this doesn’t mean that there is not much environmental impact
been created due to steel production. To know what is the environmental impact been created by
making raw steel there is a need to conduct a life cycle study which promotes both quantitative
method as well as qualitative method.
The Life cycle study can be performed in varied ways though the guidelines and framework had
been provided under ISO. There can be software technology used to describe or compare data
gathered primitively at each process or the other way is by doing primary research and
comparing quantitative data with qualitative inputs. In this project the second method has been
chosen which does not involve any software rather an in-depth study been performed to get
qualitative and qualitative inputs to give every environmental impact caused at each stage of
material making. Thus for the reason it is being termed as Life Cycle Management as per United
Nations initiatives which is being already used by other companies like 3M, Dow Chemicals, etc.
But to begin with any lifecycle process there is need for setting of Goal and Scope, the goal here
is to know the environmental impact been created by manufacturing steel bars and blooms from
scarp material under every department of organization and thus providing suitable mitigation
strategies. The scope is to keep it under “Gate to Gate†study thus providing gaps and
opportunities to enhance the plant sustainability effort. The important tool or methodology used
here is Life Cycle Mapping Tool of Sustainability Victoria of Australian Government which is
reliable and effective for this kind of study.
The major outcome of the project have been getting to know what are the inputs and outputs
causing environmental impact under each department for a particular steel grade of defined
shape and size per ton basis. This further extended to provide mitigation strategies for every key
impact that had been there, thus choosing the best suitable strategy considering the effort given
by resources or time required and the gains as of environmental returns. This study is quite
useful for plant as it showed from the raw i.e. scrap to end product i.e. alloy steel bar in whole
life cycle how much per ton requirements of inputs and generation of outputs are there and what
is the opportunity to contain the environmental impacts that has been caused.
