Sustainable Business Management: Sugar Production Analysis

Sustainable Business Management 1
Sustainable Business Management
Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
Course Name
Date

Sustainable Business Management 2
Table of Contents
Introduction............................................................................................................... 3
Production cycle......................................................................................................... 3
Purchase raw materials........................................................................................... 3
Transport In........................................................................................................ 3
Cutting/Making/Assembly...................................................................................... 3
Property & equipment – cleaning, repairs, maintenance...................................................5
Finishing............................................................................................................ 5
Packing/Packaging................................................................................................ 6
........................................................................................................................ 6
Office/Administration/Marketing/Accounting...............................................................6
........................................................................................................................ 6
Employee/HR services........................................................................................... 6
Delivery............................................................................................................. 6
........................................................................................................................ 6
Product disposal................................................................................................... 6
Input-Output chart....................................................................................................... 6
Close looped production system...................................................................................... 8
Main causes of environmental, social, cultural and economic unsustainability..........................9
Addressing the causes of unsustainability.......................................................................9
Conclusion.............................................................................................................. 13

Sustainable Business Management 3
Introduction
The organization selected deal with the production of sugar. I selected the
organization because one of my close relatives works in a sugar mills and during holidays I
normally visit and get access to key processes involved in production of sugar. It is located in
Australia. The process of obtaining sugar is quite long and begins with the obtaining of the
cane seed until it is commercialized both nationally and internationally. The paper focuses on
sugar production. It will explore steps during sugar production and analyse the sustainability
of such steps.
Production cycle
Purchase raw materials
The first step to obtain it is the sowing of sugarcane seeds. The maturation time of the
plant ranges between 12 and 14 months, at which time it can be collected mechanically and
taken to the so-called cane yards.
Transport In
The next step is to transport the purchased sugarcane to the sugarcane mill.
Cutting/Making/Assembly
The harvested sugar canes are analyzed to determine impurity levels and fiber and
sugar quality. In these cane yards they are stored and prepared on tables to be cleaned and
sent to the chopper. From the yards, these rods pass to the chopper, which by means of
turbines crush the stems and give them a homogeneous size that will make it much easier to
extract the juice in the mills. In the mills the cane is put under pressure to extract the juice.

Sustainable Business Management 4
The mills have a high-pressure turbine and in the process hot water is added to get the
maximum amount of sucrose from the cane fiber. This is called maceration. From the last
milling unit, a bagasse comes out, which is taken to a bagasse for drying. This material will
be used as fuel to generate steam that helps the operation of mill turbines.
The cane mattress after passing through the shredder enters the grinding plant formed
by the mills that are responsible for adding a portion of hot water, to extract the maximum
amount of juice, leaving the grinding plant on the one hand the juice of cane and on the other
the bagasse.
The juice is passed through the strainer and made alkaline by a lime slurry to achieve
the required pH, heated in the heaters by the return steam passing through the flash tank to
achieve a constant temperature.
In the clarifier, the next step is developed, where the cachaza is decanted from the
juice, passing it through an exhaustion process, while the already filtered juice continues the
concentration process reducing its water content by means of evaporators. The evaporated
water is collected as condensate using it as feedwater for the furnaces.
At the end of the evaporation process, the meladura is obtained, which is sent to the
pots to continue the evaporation process, where the crystallization of the sugar grains will
begin. At this stage the technological process is no longer continuous, using the cooked
dough to obtain raw sugar. The masses obtained in the crystallization go to centrifugation
separating the raw sugar from the honeys, which according to their type are classified and
forwarded to the process.
The clear juice that has remained in the previous phase is taken to evaporators, where
this juice has a level of soluble solids between 10 and 12% and in the process a syrup with a
level of solids of 55 to 60% is obtained. This rocking chair or syrup is purified in a clarifier.