The dark sugar factory – is it a feasible vision on the horizon?

Abstract

The everyday discussion in industrial operations globally revolves around artificial intelligence, model-based control, and other similar digitally oriented topics. The question looms on whether a manpower-free sugar factory is possible one day. What is needed, and what is possible today? Even though evaporation crystallization in batch pans is a long-proven and fully automatic operation, demand is growing for a better understanding of how to operate a sugar house under optimized conditions. That is becoming more imperative as the “old hands” leave the factories and take experience with them. Experience is not easily replaced, but modern tools combining process automation with machine learning or AI components allow for a rapid learning curve and substantial support for day-to-day operations. This paper shines light on the need to not only investigate the parameters of the sugar house alone but that a plant-wide approach is needed to really understand what the right tuning points for optimized sugar house operations are