(91f) Transfer of Critical Technology Learnings and Unknown to the Engineering Design Package

The transfer of innovative technology from process
development to process engineering is a critical step in realizing the
technology in a chemical plant.  There are many learnings that are typically
gained during the process development process that will have significant impacts
on the plant design such as equipment design criteria, operability,
maintainability, and control.  Additionally, there are some parts of the
technology that are not fully known, or perhaps not fully knowable, and are
considered as unknowns and technology risks in the design.  The technology
transfer has to consider how to deliver to the process engineering and
operations groups, the three major categories of technology learnings for the commercialization:
the design criteria; the operating criteria; and the process unknowns and risks.

The technology transfer package begins with the
identification of the process development deliverables.  These must be broad
based and include the requirements from all of the business functions:
marketing and sales, technology, engineering, operations, supply chain, and
maintenance.  These requirements create the deliverables for the technology
development and identify the important design criteria and operating considerations
that must be documented.  Laboratory and pilot plant studies will generate the
engineering data needed to support the functional design of the equipment, and
the operational experiences and observations will provide insight to the manufacturing
organization.  Throughout the technology development, unknowns and risks will
be identified and mitigation plans developed that are aimed at achieving a
successful implementation of the innovative technology. 

The technology transfer documentation includes all three
aspects needed for the implementation.  Key components of the process
technology, such as the material and energy balance, functional design criteria
for the major equipment, process model, safety limitations or boundaries, and
preliminary PFDs and P&IDs are described in detail for the process
engineers to complete the scale-up of the design.  The design will also need to
provide flexibility for operational considerations such as process variations
over the life of a catalyst, product quality variations, fouling, equipment
reliability, and other observations from laboratory and pilot testing.  These,
as well as the technology unknowns and risks, are documented in the definition of
the technology for the process and operations engineers to use in the design
and operating procedures.

This work process has resulted in many successful new
technology implementations.  The challenges are in identifying the correct information
needed to fully define the technology, gathering the necessary engineering
design data at the appropriate scale to be able to confidently scale-up the
process, tracking and documenting the operational issues that are or could
become operational problems on the commercial scale plant, and especially in
identifying the technology unknowns and risks.  Our presentation will discuss
how these challenges were addressed in several technology implementations,
including contingency plans, to successfully commercialize innovative
technologies.