Enriching Production

This text aims to present and discuss the innovative Volvo Uddevalla plant, comparing it to other plants - Japanese lean ones and others. The starting point for the book is Volvo's dramatic decision to close its Uddevalla and Kalmar plants, and the debate that followed this decision, both in Sweden and abroad. Both plants were pioneers of the possibilities to unite productivity and the good work, but, following the announcement of their closure, researchers and practitioners in the field of industrial organization from many countries asked why they closed, how they compared with other production concepts, and whether we now see an end of an alternative to Japanese lean production.

This text aims to present and discuss the innovative Volvo Uddevalla plant, comparing it to other plants - Japanese lean ones and others. The starting point for the book is Volvo's dramatic decision to close its Uddevalla and Kalmar plants, and the debate that followed this decision, both in Sweden and abroad. Both plants were pioneers of the possibilities to unite productivity and the good work, but, following the announcement of their closure, researchers and practitioners in the field of industrial organization from many countries asked why they closed, how they compared with other production concepts, and whether we now see an end of an alternative to Japanese lean production.

Dr. Smil is the world's authority on nitrogenous fertilizer. The industrial synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen has been of greater fundamental importance to the modern world than the invention of the airplane, nuclear energy, space flight, or television. The expansion of the world's population from 1.6 billion people in 1900 to today's six billion would not have been possible without the synthesis of ammonia. In Enriching the Earth, Vaclav Smil begins with a discussion of nitrogen's unique status in the biosphere, its role in crop production, and traditional means of supplying the nutrient. He then looks at various attempts to expand natural nitrogen flows through mineral and synthetic fertilizers. The core of the book is a detailed narrative of the discovery of ammonia synthesis by Fritz Haber—a discovery scientists had sought for over one hundred years—and its commercialization by Carl Bosch and the chemical company BASF. Smil also examines the emergence of the large-scale nitrogen fertilizer industry and analyzes the extent of global dependence on the Haber-Bosch process and its biospheric consequences. Finally, it looks at the role of nitrogen in civilization and, in a sad coda, describes the lives of Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch after the discovery of ammonia synthesis.

From the John Holmes Library collection.

This book is the product of a congressionally mandated study to examine the feasibility of eliminating the use of highly enriched uranium (HEU2) in reactor fuel, reactor targets, and medical isotope production facilities. The book focuses primarily on the use of HEU for the production of the medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), whose decay product, technetium-99m3 (Tc-99m), is used in the majority of medical diagnostic imaging procedures in the United States, and secondarily on the use of HEU for research and test reactor fuel. The supply of Mo-99 in the U.S. is likely to be unreliable until newer production sources come online. The reliability of the current supply system is an important medical isotope concern; this book concludes that achieving a cost difference of less than 10 percent in facilities that will need to convert from HEU- to LEU-based Mo-99 production is much less important than is reliability of supply.