A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO RECIPE IMPROVEMENT AND OPTIMIZATION IN THE BATCH PROCESSING-INDUSTRY

Traditionally, many industrial batch processes are operated according to rigid recipes, in spite of the fact that production would benefit f rom recipes that are efficiently adapted to changes in quality and cos t of feedstocks, product requirements, process and scheduling conditio ns, and so on. This paper outlines the flexible recipe-approach to eff icient development and improvement of master (control) recipes and to adjustment of control recipes during production. Design of experiments , process modelling and recipe optimization play a key role in the pro posed approach. The application of the approach is illustrated on the basis of the industrial example: improving of the production of an alk yd resin at a large chemical company in The Netherlands. In this case, the old recipe, which was too expensive, was replaced by a cheaper on e, for which the dosage of new ingredients had to be found. The modell ing of the process also made possible the optimization of the process duration. Finally, a new correction rule was determined for situations in which the process does not progress as expected. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.