Production Control of a Polymerization Plant Based on Production Performance Indicators

The specifics of process manufacturing have a great influence on production management. The focus of process-production control is to maintain stable and cost-effective production within given constraints. The synthesis of production-control structures is thus recognized as one of the most important design problems in process-production management. This article proposes a closed-loop control structure with the utilization of production-performance indicators (pPIs) as a possible solution to this problem. Suggested concept takes into account also economic issues of production. pPIs represent the translation of operating objectives, such as the minimization of production costs, to a reduced set of control variables that can then be used in a feedback control. The idea of production-feedback control using production pPIs as controlled variables was implemented on a procedural model of a production process for a polymerization plant. Preliminary results demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed methodology. At the implementation stage we must be aware that appropriate IT system has to be available which ensures needed online production data.