Decision support system for polymerization production plant using pPIs

The synthesis of plant-wide control structures is recognized as one of the most important production- management design problems in the process industries. This article proposes a decision support system, utilizing key performance indicators (pPIs) as a possible solution to simplify this problem. pPIs represent the translation of operating objectives, such as the minimization of production costs, to a set of measurable variables that can then be used to help production manager to select the operating regime of the production line. The idea of decision support system at the production- management level using pPIs as referenced controlled variables was implemented on the procedural model of a production process for a polymerization plant. Preliminary results show the usefulness of the proposed methodology.