Читать книгу Profit Maximization Techniques for Operating Chemical Plants - Sandip K. Lahiri - Страница 63

Various process equipment like distillation columns, reactors, furnaces, heat exchangers, pumps and compressors, etc., form the backbone of chemical plants. Before jumping to increase profit, it is very important to know how they are performing currently in the plant. In this step, the performance of various process equipment is assessed and any performance limitations are critically examined. It also involves assessing the efficiency of different parts of the process, such as yield, catalyst selectivity, quality consistency, etc. It is of the utmost importance to assess the performance of a base process and equipment layer and improve it before trying to build a PMP application over it. In this step an overall assessment of the base equipment layer was performed scientifically and corrective steps were taken to rectify limitations, if any (Lahiri, 2017c). This essentially means identification of any problems in distillation columns, reactors, furnaces, heat exchangers, pumps, and compressors and applies to various techniques like maintenance of rotating equipment, heat exchanger cleaning, etc., to rectify the problems.

Figure 3.1 Different steps in profit maximization project (PMP) implementation