(330f) Application of Computer-Aided Process Optimization Technologies – Progress, Opportunities & Challenges

Author: Manolis Kotzabasakis

The impact of computer-aided process optimization technologies has grown exponentially over the past 35 years. These technologies have evolved from in-house main-frame programs developed and run by a few select experts to user-friendly products with ever-increasing intelligence and adaptive capabilities that are accessible anytime and anywhere.  They are routinely used every day throughout the lifecycle of a process plant and in day-to-day operations, including conceptual and detailed design, production planning and scheduling, process monitoring and control, and supply chain management and optimization.  The ready availability and increased power of computer-aided process optimization technologies have resulted in better process designs and more efficient plant operations, and has accelerated the rate of new process technology innovation.  But what does the future hold?

This presentation will examine trends that are impacting the application of computing-aided process optimization technologies in the process industries, including the need to respond rapidly to changing business conditions, more stringent operating requirements, increased need for collaboration across different business functions, advances in computing and real-time systems, new developments in modeling, control and optimization algorithms, the impact of mobile computing and social media, and the changing user demographic.  It will discuss our perspectives on how computer-aided process optimization technologies will need to adapt to this changing landscape, and explore the potential to provide benefits to the process industries beyond current practices.