WP2 Production Scenarios
As part of the overall project objective to design and deliver modular, continuous production concepts - the F³ Factory project is seeking to develop novel production technology that will drive a new paradigm in sustainable manufacturing for the EU chemical processing sector.
The production scenarios work package (WP2) will help determine the drivers for F³ Factory innovations as well as the technical and economic barriers of existing production technologies for:
- production in multi-purpose plants
- localised production in dedicated plants
In addition, a new software based decision-making support tool is being developed to help process technologists effectively apply F³ Factory concepts.
Technical University Dortmund is leading this work package and working with the seven industrial partners (Arkema, AstraZeneca, BASF, Bayer Technology Services, Evonik, Procter & Gamble, Rhodia) as well as CNRS, Process Design Center and University of Newcastle.
The first phase of the WP2 activity has been to determine the drivers for F3 Factory innovation. This includes an assessment of both the technical and economic barriers of existing production scenarios across the various industrial case study projects and work packages.
Working with project partners, TU Dortmund has developed a decision support tool that will help identify the right production scenario for each of the respective industrial projects.
ProMoT (production mode selection tool) enables you to decide when - and under which conditions - the new F³ Factory production concept is more efficient than existing state-of-the-art production technology. It also enables you to evaluate the economical and ecological efficiency of the whole production supply chain including:
- raw material and energy supply (incl. transport)
- process needs
- energy use and waste production
- time to market constraints
- product transportation
- site constraints
- development time.
Output from the ProMoT tool provides a full performance assessment of F³ Factory concepts against traditional plant concepts. In contrast to conventional simulation software, ProMoT is designed to be able to simulate both batch and continuous production scenarios.
ProMoT has been specifically developed using the F³ Factory industrial base cases as examples. The processes under investigation range from:
- small scale batch production of pharmaceutical intermediates (AstraZeneca, Bayer Technology Services)
- medium scale production of specialty polymers (BASF, Rhodia)
- production of large scale intermediates (Arkema, Evonik, Procter & Gamble).
Each of the industrial case studies has its own specific production characteristics which result in a variety of factors influencing the production mode decision.
Work on the development of the ProMoT tool for assessing both Net Present Value (NPV) based economic evaluations and process simulation is close to completion. Further work to allow for an iterative optimisation of time dependent production capacities continues.
