14 - Monitoring and intelligent support systems to optimise water and energy use

Abstract

Publisher Summary The success of any attempt at improving or optimizing energy and water use in any industrial process requires a comprehensive knowledge of the production system and relies on substantial amounts of data, which in turn can allow the most profitable and environmentally friendly operation. Such data, which include not only records of process variables, but also events, disturbances, faults or failures, innovations, market changes, legislative, and environmental constraints, etc., have to be gathered (measured or simulated), stored and analyzed, and finally converted through actions, such as control strategies, maintenance management plans, and design and redesign procedures. The growing complexity of industrial processes and the practical need for higher efficiency, greater flexibility, better product quality, and lower costs have resulted in increasing requirements for enhanced operation and management support. The advent of computer technology has allowed to implement more advanced process control and management systems, such as intelligent process operation support systems. An intelligent operation support system generally consists of an online operation manual, fault diagnosis, equipment maintenance management and multimedia interface. The systems of monitoring and intelligent support aim to collect data, convert these into information to create the knowledge required for simulation and prediction of systems behavior, correlate them, visualize them, and use them for forecasting, planning and scheduling, maintenance management, optimal operation and design/redesign of process changes. Process monitoring is often based on statistical data collection, which detects abnormal process operation, leads to an understanding of process capability and helps determine major disturbances. Monitoring is followed by diagnosis of the source cause(s) of any disturbance.