By Emily Newton, revolutionized.com
More decision-makers are prioritising chemical process optimisation to increase competitiveness and manage costs. Many also recognise this approach can improve equipment reliability, reducing the number of downtime incidents and unplanned repairs.
What Are the Main Benefits of Chemical Process Optimisation?
Chemical plant leaders can look forward to many compelling advantages by emphasising chemical process optimisation in their facilities. Better sustainability is one of them.
People can redesign their processes to minimise waste and promote reuse, thereby reducing the company’s carbon footprint. A good starting point is to estimate overall resource use for a given process. Consider the amounts of water, energy and raw materials required. Then, examine possibilities for reducing them without compromising quality.
Manufacturing facilities can also become safer with optimised processes. If a facility has frequent or rising safety issues, those could be warning signs of workflows not functioning well enough. People must remember that even well-trained professionals can have accidents and get injured due to carelessness and fatigue. However, better procedures could keep workers more engaged, energetic and able to focus.
Enhanced quality is perhaps the most common reason for optimising processes. When products maintain minimum standards and offer excellent consistency, customers will build trust in the company and want to keep doing business with it.
Why Does Optimisation Improve Equipment Reliability?
Unplanned downtime can be catastrophic for companies, especially when their business models revolve around making in-demand or high-cost items. Machine failures can also compromise other ideals.
For example, unnoticed and incorrect chemical concentrations could result in commercial products having the wrong formulas and becoming dangerous to use. A faulty machine could also compromise quality control measures and result in a product recall.
Additionally, a machine fault resulting in a leak, explosion or abnormal wear could pose immediate risks to operators or others in the immediate area. Then, the equipment-related dangers make the facility an unsafe workplace. Besides the possibility of workforce injuries, a company could attract regulatory attention and incur fines. Fortunately, leaders have many opportunities to enhance their processes and improve equipment running time metrics.
Move Away From Reactive Maintenance
If the current approach to machine upkeep is to perform it only once problems appear, the respective company follows a reactive maintenance schedule. However, sticking to it could result in more unplanned downtime because people can’t catch problems before those issues become catastrophic and highly disruptive.
A study showed that 80% of maintenance professionals prefer preventive maintenance instead. It involves handling upkeep before equipment begins showing issues. Technicians generally inspect the machines on a set schedule determined by a manufacturer’s recommendations, the equipment’s average daily usage or another appropriate metric.
Succeeding with chemical process optimisation can also mean choosing predictive maintenance. That method relies on data analytics and real-time sensors to detect abnormalities before humans notice anything wrong.
Both preventive and predictive maintenance offer numerous benefits over reactive methods. The main advantage is that they create a bigger time window for finding and addressing a problem. Once a decision-maker understands what’s wrong and the issue’s impact, they can make well-informed choices about how to handle the matter. That might mean:
- Ordering a spare part
- Replacing faulty equipment
- Scheduling a repair
- Using the machine less often
- Changing training practices
Make Equipment Training More Immersive
Poor or non-existent training can result in employees making mistakes that reduce the lifespan of equipment used for chemical processes. Similarly, equipment can become less reliable if people don’t follow operating checklists before and after using the equipment.
Textbooks and online modules are still significant parts of many employee training programmes. However, some leaders are taking a different approach by making the content more interactive and reflective of someone’s daily tasks.
Dr Ivan Wall is a professor at the United Kingdom’s University of Birmingham who is using virtual reality (VR) to improve training. He’s particularly interested in applying VR to the biomanufacturing industry. People seeking apprenticeships at companies such as GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer go through VR modules first as part of their onboarding.
In addition to the costly equipment owned by such companies, the manufacturing process can be extremely expensive. Wall explained how a single-use tube set to make a product for a single patient can cost £10,000, and incineration of it must occur after training. In contrast, a person could get trained on the associated process several times in a virtual realm. Then, they only need to use one physical tube set to prove they understand what they’ve learned.
A similar option is to have people wear augmented reality (AR) items while working with equipment. AR glasses can show people machine diagrams, product instructions or warnings on top of their real-world environments. When that content is in an operator’s field of vision without requiring them to flip through books or manuals, there’s less of a chance things will go wrong. Workers can improve equipment reliability while feeling more confident in their roles.
Choose Metrics to Track
A decision-maker might set a broad goal to improve equipment reliability, but how will they know if and when the company has made progress? One of the best ways is to set expectations and hold everyone accountable to them.
Consider the example of one of Thailand’s largest petrochemical companies. Its leaders embarked on a significant digital transformation plan that included a digital reliability platform, prescriptive recommendations and artificial intelligence-driven predictive maintenance.
Beyond investing in advanced technology, decision-makers tracked how well it worked throughout the organisation. One finding was a 40% reduction in maintenance expenses. It occurred through work scheduling improvements and better operational and workflow efficiency.
People also needed less than 10 seconds to retrieve actionable information from a dedicated data platform that provided a single source of truth and enabled automated reporting. When company workers know where and how to get relevant details to improve equipment reliability or support their processes, technology investments pay off.
Committing to metrics tracking also makes it easier to achieve executive buy-in to support further investments. Leaders almost always want proof that process optimisation strategies have improved before they’ll agree to expand the company’s efforts.
Decide to Optimise Processes Today
Chemical process optimisation makes good business sense in the short and long term. While getting the desired results takes time, people can set the stage for positive changes now by accepting it is time to pursue optimisation. Once everyone agrees, it’ll be much easier to work out the best ways to get meaningful outcomes.
