Alignment of management to operator is crucial to avoid the pitfalls discussed previ-ously. First, the commitment of the site“champion”and support of upper management
are requirements for success and ongoing value creation. The operators“buying in”to
the value of the solution is of key importance, as they must implement the recommended
changes in order to produce the savings.
The system must give accurate and direct advice in a format thatfits existing
operator systems and preferences. Operators are motivated to implement the optimizer’s
recommendations when they see a clear indication of thefinancial benefit alongside the
recommended changes to manual set points.
Another important consideration in the success of a real-time optimization system is
the technical approach. The optimization model should be based upon rigorous
thermodynamics and an effective optimization algorithm. A mass balance alone will
provide suboptimal solutions. A thermodynamic balance is essential to completely
describe the system and achieve a true optimum.
The system must also be capable of considering equipment starts and stops in
addition to“continuous”variables in order tomaximize savings opportunities. And, even
with the additional complexity of such“on/off”decisions, the calculation engine should
solve within a few minutes in order to provide timely advice to the operators.
In addition to the importance of the site-wide approach discussed earlier in this
chapter, the system should run at a regularly scheduled frequency in order to provide the
operators with automatically updated recommendations, and the regular use of the
system should be included in operational procedures for each shift