(27b) Investigation of Economic Penalty Due to Measurement Bias in Real Time Optimization

Real Time Optimization (RTO) is attractive to chemical manufacturers because it can both improve their profitability and reduce unwanted emissions simultaneously. Even small increases in facility profitability can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. However, potential RTO benefits may not be realized due to economic penalties caused by process measurement bias errors. These penalties have not been thoroughly explored in previous research about the industrial effectiveness of RTO applications. This research will investigate the economic penalty due to biased plant measurements and develop a procedure to determine when bias error is significant to a particular RTO design.