Abstracts Category : Other

Business ecosystems of side stream utilisation in metal industry:Petrit-T case study

by S (Saara) Vnnen

Abstract Side stream utilisation is an important research area in the world today. More and more new ways are developed to diminish the amount of waste, recycle waste and utilise the side streams into good use instead of throw a good business opportunity and the valuable side stream away. Side stream utilisation possibilities should be investigated not only in technology point of view but also in the business point of view also to find the best possibilities for utilisation and have the longest possible lifecycle to the raw materials according to principles of sustainable development. Petrit-T is a lime rich side stream that is created in the production of sponge iron. It has been handled and managed as a waste and it has been thrown to the landfill but now the production company Hgans AB is keen on utilising the Petrit-T as efficiently as possible in the products in the world by selling the substance to other companies that are willing to produce end products made of it. After getting the secondary raw material status through REACH regulation in EU, Petrit-T is managed as stabile material and different laws and taxes apply to it. It is usable material to post-processing and to add value to the network around the company and profitable end-products. This thesis studies the utilisation of Petrit-T in the business utilisation point of view. It is an economic feasibility study in European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) funded project called MIN-PET and it is one of three pre-studies in the beginning of the project. The goal to the feasibility study and to this thesis is to give a proposal of the business ecosystems of the selected end-product scenarios, business models and business case analysis in this case and to find an answer to following research questions: 1. How can the industrial side streams be analysed in the economic point of view? 2. What are the value streams and business model scenarios of the side stream substance of Hgans AB? 3. What are the business cases of the side stream utilisation? A descriptive study method has been used in this thesis. A literature review provides a framework needed in the research and the empiric study fulfils the practical need. The methods used are workshop group discussions and visual modelling, interviews and detail gathering to an excel sheet. Finally the theoretical knowledge is joined together with the empirical research to form a business case analysis and business case proposal. The most important findings are that the ecosystems can be formed in many ways depending on the end-product scenario. In this study the end-product scenarios are acoustic panels and cementious binder that have their own ecosystems and concrete elements