Smart Manufacturing in Distillation

Smart manufacturing is the next revolution of manufacturing in the chemical process industry which will provide the platform for the next generation of production in chemical manufacturing process. The chemical plant of the future is where self-aware process equipment work in concert, wirelessly communicating their status with each other to produce the highest quality product in the least amount of time with near zero incidents, emissions, and waste. The plant is intimately connected with upstream and downstream processes such that it can respond in real time to market shifts, customer demand, global economics, and socio economic activities. From the economic perspective of revenue loss due to unscheduled plant shutdown and maintenance, the goal of smart manufacturing is to create knowledge-embedded chemical manufacturing operations that would enhance a facility’s ability to predict problems and act proactively to prevent problems before they occur (Humphrey, 2007). Also, process improvement, productivity enhancements, conservation in mass and energy resources, reductions in the operating and capital costs of chemical processes are some of the unique advantages of the smart manufacturing application (Dunn and El-Halwagi, 2003). The idea is to transform the existing paradigm of today’s chemical manufacturing process operations from reactive to proactive, response to prevention, compliance to performance oriented, tactical to strategic, and local to global. Although the cost of the technology infrastructure is capital intensive, the return on investment will outweigh the cost. This paper provides an overview of some of the developments, major driving forces and hurdles in distillation, being the most widely used unit operations technique in the chemical process industry to explore smart distillation plant so as to elucidate smart manufacturing applications in the chemical process industry. The fundamental aspects of this approach along with their incorporation in the overall methodology will be discussed. The key role of optimization in smart distillation plant which is crucial to profitability is discussed. An understanding of the common operating problems in distillation plant along with timely corrective actions achieved through the advanced process control will enable operating personnel take appropriate decision. There is still knowledge gap in the area of achieving real time material and energy balance determination in smart distillation plant. Future research directions are recommended and extensive lists of references are provided.