(501b) Providing Technical Decision-Making Capability to Plant Floor Technicians

When commercializing new specialty chemicals, oftentimes, detailed process studies are assessed in R&D before piloting and commercial production. These studies are effectively utilized to develop highly effective processes that deliver on targets for quality, costs, safety, and capacity. However, oftentimes, the highly tuned process along with technical justifications are not communicated to the process engineers and technicians who make decisions on a daily basis. Many of the potential deviations from design can be easily assessed from current production history and the new product development studies with no additional work. In this talk, we will demonstrate how process development engineers can effectively predict where deviations may come and provide the appropriate guidance to manufacturing support personnel. We will also show examples of how appropriate and simplistic operations reference documents can help maintain the quality and productivity of the process when deviations come.