The challenge for refineries and petrochemical plants when it comes to planning is to determine the most profitable way to operate the plant based on varied supply, demand and asset capabilities
Planners solve a variety of problems using their planning tools ranging from the impact of long range capital projects; decisions to make a new product mix; process new feedstock or significantly vary the operation of the plant due to asset limitations. In each case, the planner uses the overall plant model and economics to determine the optimal solution.
Honeywell’s Refining and Petrochemical Modeling System (RPMS) is designed specifically to answer the demands of the planning process. Using RPMS, planners can integrate all of the constraints that affect their plans using data from a variety of sources and then develop the optimal solution rapidly and accurately. The latest version of RPMS, Release 500 (R500), has some new features that improves user experience and makes the planning process more intuitive.
These features equip R500 with the capabilities that greatly benefit the planning process. Thus profitability is maximized through the development and optimization of refining and petrochem models. Also, planning tools are made available for the full range of planning processes – from strategic to short term operational plans.
Another key advantage brought on by R500 is an embedded domain expertise for refining and petrochem modeling. As a result of these advantages, R500 is able to provide a much easier way of finding information, an improved ability to define, run and evaluate cases, an improved ability to build and maintain models and an improved analytics and visualization for planners with Intuition Plan Analytics.
RPMS includes a refining process database and a chemical process database. The refining database provides a comprehensive selection of process unit sub-models and investment-capacity relationships for the most commercially available processes used by the refining industry worldwide.
It contains sub-models for both volume- and weight-based process units. The chemicals database on the other hand contains a broad range of petrochemical processes and products, and sub-models for more than 100 chemical processing units (and associated investment costs).
The user interface also provides a graphical view of the plant allowing users to modify the display and view an intuitive image of the complete model for execution and modification. R500 is also equipped with an Intuition Plan Analytics dashboard with which users can select, compare and publish cases using existing RPMS results database.
RPMS provides a clear view of all projects which have been built and allows the user to organize, group and access these easily using a model tree. In addition, R500 provides simplified capability to create, manage and solve cases. This uses a new user interface that also simplifies solving a set of cases.
R500 also has an Advanced Solve capability for sophisticated users that is equipped with full solution capabilities of RPMS.
Honeywell offers an optional web based application that enables the organization to make broader use of planning results. The application which is built on the Honeywell Intuition platform also includes a Plan Analytics module that provides the planner with capabilities to select, analyze & compare cases, nominate and publish the plan and compare the plan to previous plans or benchmarks.
For the broader organization, this module provides the capabilities to view the plan and make use of planning targets with other Honeywell applications like Intuition KPI or Intuition Executive.
The RPMS has been selected by some of the biggest petrochemical players around the world, prominent among them Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) and PetroChina.
IOCL has recently implemented Honeywell’s Supply Chain Management solution in five separate refineries. At the heart of this solution is Honeywell’s RPMS, which covered the entire supply chain of IOCL from crude purchases and at the refinery gate or ports to product distribution at the terminals.
On the other hand, PetroChina selected Honeywell to implement an advanced planning solution using Honeywell’s RPMS to help them optimize crude oil selection, production distribution and plant production.
Owing to the success of this pilot implementation RPMS, PetroChina signed a follow-up contract with Honeywell to roll-out the technology in the company’s remaining refineries, petrochemical plants and headquarters.
