John Forgac, BP Naperville Campus, BP North American Products, MC 605-1E, 150 West Warrenville Road, Naperville, IL 60563-8460, Miguel J. Bagajewicz, Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering, University of Oklahoma, 100 E. Boyd St., T-335, Norman, OK 73019, and Larry Megan, Praxair, 175 East Park Drive, PO Box 44, Tonawanda, NY 14150.
Smart manufacturing plants prevent problems before they occur. A key ingredient for Smart Plants is accurate real time material and heat balances around individual processes (e.g. reactors and distillation columns). Such balances are made possible by accurate real time plant measurements of process flow rates, compositions,temperatures, etc. This discussion will focus on overcoming two key barriers to Smart Plants: (1) How can accurate real time plant measurements be realized, even in older plants ? (2) How can the volumes of plant data that are created be quickly analyzed ?