Advanced decision support through real-time optimization in the process industry

Abstract

xi have been obtained. Of course, as has been proven with historical data, such savings depend on the historical data and how it was acted at the time, but in general, it can be concluded that the developed RTO formulations are very useful to help decision making by indicating the optimal operation. In addition, the results also show that the current policy of cleaning the dirtiest is not the most profitable from an economic point of view, since it depends on many factors. Thus, the developed RTOs also help configuring maintenance task schedule.The results obtained solving the problems independently versus coordinated verify that the solutions obtained when the problems are solved independently are local, so any of the coordination approaches obtains better results. Furthermore, the comparison of the approaches shows that for this problem size, the centralized formulation is the most suitable.Analyzing the solution obtained for the network re-design, the conclusion is that the cost of operating the network decreases when the number of heat pumps used increases, up to an extent. Therefore, the number of pumps to buy depends on the payback time of the investment that the company considers acceptable, regardless of the value of such investment. It is worth mentioning that the optimal number of heat pumps to use and their arrangement depend on each scenario.Finally, it should be noted that this thesis is the result of several years of collaboration between academic and an industrial company, dealing with problems of a real case study. However, although the different technologies developed are tailored for a specific industrial plant, they could easily be adapted and extended to any industry with similar equipment and problems.