Profit Maximization Techniques for Operating Chemical Plants. Sandip K. Lahiri
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СКАЧАТЬ drain from the plant. Chapter 15 enlightens the reader about various strategies used to reduce the losses and wastages. A step‐by‐step procedure for a money loss audit is explained in detail in this chapter.

      Advance Process Control

      Advance process control (APC) already established itself as an effective tool to increase profit by pushing the process at its constraints. What is APC, how APC brings benefits, a candidate for APC implementation, and typical benefits obtained from commercial APC applications across the world are the subjects described in Chapter 16 to enlighten a new reader about the potential of APC. A step‐by‐step procedure to build an effective APC application is discussed in detail. Special emphasis is given to describe the most important step, namely the functional design step. Do's and Don'ts of APC application buildings are explained so that readers are aware how to develop a robust application.

      150 Ways and Best Practices to Improve Profit in Running a Chemical Plant

      The practicing process engineers or production engineers working in chemical plants normally have much less exposure or knowledge to implement a site‐wide holistic profit maximization project. The available books on the market on chemical engineering and process engineering do not cover the practical aspects of how to increase profit in a running commercial chemical plant. The available books on chemical engineering optimization and energy improvement place emphasis on unnecessary theoretical details, which normally are not required by practicing engineers and those theories have very little relevance for commercial implementation of profit maximization in a running plant. Most of the books cover theoretical aspects and unnecessary detailed calculations mainly for the design of process equipment. Few books address optimization in chemical plants as their focus is on development of a superior theoretical optimization algorithm and completely ignore the real‐life application side. Every CEO in chemical plants understands that profit maximization in running a chemical plant is a vast subject and should be tackled holistically. There are various ways and means with varying degrees of usefulness to increase profit in operating plants. Profit can be increased by reducing waste, by optimizing processes, by increasing equipment performance, by improving reaction selectivity/yield/efficiency, by reducing raw material and utility consumption, by pushing the process towards its constraints, by running the plants at the highest possible capacity, by installing low‐cost high‐efficacy equipment, etc. Most of the available books cover the whole subject only partially. Some books cover energy optimization, some deal with waste minimization, and some introduce low‐cost design of equipment. However, no book is available on the market to cover the whole gamut of the subject holistically and in this context this will be the first such book. It provides engineers with all practical aspects of the profit maximization project in running plants, as well as expert guidance on how to derive maximum benefits from running the plants.

      Clearly, it was not a small effort to write the book, but the absence of such a practical oriented book on the market and its requirement in a large number of process industries spurred me to writing it. I had an opportunity to work with leading petrochemical plants across the globe in the last 28 years was fortunate to see a wide spectrum of profit improvement initiatives taken by various fortune 500 companies. I have tried to incorporate all my learning and global experience in this book. I would like to thank Mr Mansoor Husain of M/s Scientific Design, USA, for teaching and exposing me to the practical field of profit improvement.

      Finally, I am truly grateful to my family, my wife Jinia and my two lovely children Suchetona and Srijon, for their understanding and generosity of spirit in tolerating my absence during the writing of this book.

      Dr Sandip Kumar Lahiri

      January, 2020

      1.1 Introduction

      Modern process industries are experiencing the following new challenges in their businesses:

       Enforcement of stringent pollution control laws.

       Pressure from government agencies to change to more energy efficient processes and equipment.

       Constant encouragement from government to shift to safer and less pollutant processes and technology.

       Decline of sales prices of end products in the international market.

       More focus on sustainability and more reliable processes.

      All these issues are forcing the process industries to look for new technological innovations so that new ways of doing business can be explored.

      Profit maximization is at the core of every chemical company's vision and mission nowadays. Making money by safely producing chemicals and selling locally are no longer adequate to survive in today's business environment.

      Maximization of profit, continuous improvement of operation, sustainability, and enhanced reliability to reduce production cost are buzzwords in today's CPI. Industries are slowly shifting their priorities to energy efficiency, real‐time process optimization, environment friendliness, and sustainability.

      Running the plant at their highest feasible capacity by exploiting the margin available in process equipment is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Maximizing the profit margin by reducing waste products, by increasing mass transfer and energy efficiency of equipment, and by pushing the process to their physical limit are the current trends of CPI (Lahiri, 2017b).