Full Plant Models - Why Bother?
A number of companies are finding strategic benefit and value in creating and maintaining a full plant model of their process facility. A full plant model is a strategic tool for increasing process knowledge and, in the right hands, driving cost effective process improvements and/or troubleshooting process problems. It allows the user to understand interactions between process areas, some of which may have competing objectives. It also highlights how localised performance optimisation may not be beneficial to the overall Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as overall plant throughput, raw material consumption rate and energy consumption etc. This presentation looks at the process of creating, maintaining and getting value from a full plant model, and looks at some of the benefits and pitfalls. Case studies of full plant models in both the minerals processing and oil and gas process industries are presented.